


Cin Vhetin

by Audustaire



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Crack Ship (but taken seriously), Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Disability, Dumb Jock Din, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Family Feels, Fluff, Found Family, Gay Space Dads, I Gave Pershing a First Name, Love is Requited They're Just Idiots, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pershing Needs a Hug, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Din Djarin, Rare Pair, Redemption, Sasshole Pershing, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Soft Din Djarin, Sorry Not Sorry, Torture, pershing is a traumatized bean, pls don't copy onto another site, team give Din a boyfriend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Audustaire/pseuds/Audustaire
Summary: Cin Vhetin - Mando’a phrase meaning “fresh start” or “clean slate.” Literally, “white field.”Dr. Pershing takes a chance on the Mandalorian, the Asset, and (eventually) himself.Or: A retelling/eventual AU of season one, two, and beyond in which Dr. Pershing gets his shit together and helps Din and Grogu escape in episode three, and Din decides to take in yet another stray. Slow burn Din/Pershing
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin & Pershing, Din Djarin/Doctor Pershing, Din Djarin/Luma Pershing, Din Djarin/Pershing, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Pershing & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 80
Kudos: 131





	1. Make Yourself Useful

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man. So, I’m a 28 year old lady who hasn’t written fanfiction since I was a teenager. And then The Mandalorian happened to me and I fell back into the fandom life HARD. Lots of credit to LadyIrina’s incredible series [The Mandalorian, his Son, and the Storm Trooper](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560925) and for writing Corin, the beautifully characterized OC, and inspiring me to write this story so I could also give Din a cute gay space boyfriend in need of a redemption arc.
> 
> I anticipate this being a long, slow burn. This first chapter is mainly backstory for Pershing - his childhood, how he gets roped into the Empire’s service, and his complicated relationship with Moff Gideon. So no Din yet, but bear with me - this beginning is necessary for Pershing’s character and his relationship with Din in chapters to come.
> 
> Also, I just gave Pershing a first name since he doesn’t have one in canon, and I am in the process of watching Clone Wars for the first time, so my canonical knowledge of the wider Star Wars universe is limited. Shout out to my girlfriend who is a massive Star Wars nerd and wookieepedia for helping me craft a somewhat believable backstory for Pershing within the Star Wars canon.
> 
> No beta, so all mistakes are mine. Though feel free to shame me - I’m an English teacher irl and should know better. If anyone is willing to beta, please let me know :)
> 
> Strap in, folks, and thanks for reading.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Luma Pershing, thus far.

Luma Pershing is ten years old when he meets Gideon.

The Empire attacked his city at dawn. By mid-morning, it’s all over. Most of the people of Prim are engineers and traders, after all, not fighters. The small metropolis is known for its ships and weapons tech, and months earlier its leaders declared neutrality in the war between the Empire and the Rebellion, choosing to only sell to private citizens unaffiliated with either side. The Rebellion had respected their stance. The Empire had not. 

Once the smoke begins to clear, the stormtroopers scour the crumbled wreckage for any survivors. Luma and a handful of others are forced at blasterpoint to kneel in the middle of what remains of the city square. Luma, glancing around wildly at the tear- and rubble-stained faces surrounding him, realizes with a rising panic that he doesn’t recognize any of them. 

_This can’t be everyone left, can it?_

He thinks of Marin, his owner. Luma’s mother, sick, dying, too frail to provide for him any longer, had sold him to Marin out of desperation when he was seven. _(“Make yourself useful, Luma,” she’d whispered into his ear. She’d clutched his quivering, bony frame to her heart so very tightly. “You need to survive for me, baby, no matter what.”_ )

Marin isn’t a kind man by any means, but he’d seen past Luma’s appearance - all angles and gangly limbs on a too-small frame and dark, frightened eyes - and saw value in his sharp mind. Soon after Marin had purchased him and realized he had a natural aptitude for engineering, he started bringing him to his shipyard, showing him the ins and outs of building and repairing all types of spacecraft and their assorted weapons. He even allowed Luma to spend some days in the city library, where he would lose himself in the languages and cultures of worlds he would never go to - if only to make easier any deals that might involve a customer who didn’t speak Basic.

“Might as well make use of that big brain of yours, kid,” Marin had told him. “Start makin’ yourself worth the credits I paid for you.” And Luma had understood, had remembered his mother’s final words: _If I’m useful, I survive._

_But... If Marin’s dead, where am I going to go?_

“Are these all the survivors?” a deep, even voice says. 

Luma dares to look up. The man who spoke is undoubtedly the leader. He’s cloaked in black and isn’t wearing armor, though he’s clearly taken part in the attack on Prim as his face is flecked with blood and ash.

 _Dangerous_. 

“Yes, sir. All of Prim has fallen, save these last few we rounded up,” one of the stormtroopers replies.

“Good.” The man flits his gaze over the huddled figures before him. “Very good. Dispose of them,” he says, and turns on his heel to walk away.

Luma hears the whine of aimed blasters and the terrified shrieks of the people around him, but all he can think is _No, no, no, no, no, no, no - DO SOMETHING._

“Wait!” he cries _._ “I’m - I’m useful!” He only half knows what he’s saying, but he wilts thinks anything is worth a shot. Anything to delay the inevitable by even a few precious seconds. 

The leader pauses at his shout, turns, and locks eyes with him. He raises an eyebrow. “Useful?”

Luma shivers under the man’s dissecting gaze.

“I know I’m small, but - but I’m smart.” He half-expects to the man to shoot him right there, but instead he raises his hand, signaling the stormtroopers to lower their weapons.

“You’re... smart,” the man repeats coldly. 

“I know how to build ships, repair them, make weapons for them. My master owns - owned - one of the shipyards,” he says, the words spilling from his mouth before he can stop them. “Um. I’ve read every book in the library. And I remember everything I read, so I’m good at history and languages. I - I know about things. Anything else you might need, I could learn. I’m really smart, I swear.”

_Please, please let this work._

“Va’abir no jeha’at at ni, adi’ik,” the man growls. ( _Do not lie to me, child._ )

Luma’s heart drops into his stomach, but he presses on out of sheer desperation. “I’m not lying! Give me a chance. Please. I’ll work for you. I’m good at things, honest.”

The man is silent for a moment, all emotion void from his expression as he considers the trembling boy before him. “You just understood Mando’a,” he observes.

 _Oh._ So he did. Foolish hope rises in his throat. “Oh, uh, yeah. It only took me a couple weeks with some books from the library. I also know Huttese, Gungan, and Cheunh. I - I told you, I’m smart,” he says again, weakly. “I learn fast, and I can learn more. Whatever you want me to do, I can do it.”

He can feel the other villagers and stormtroopers around him shifting in confusion at his audacity. Frankly, he doesn’t blame them. 

The leader stalks toward him and grabs his chin in a vice grip, staring straight into his eyes as if daring the boy to look away. His heart stutters in fear.

“Why should I trust you, boy?” the man hisses. “I have razed your home to the ground. All that you have ever known is ashes because of me.”

Luma meets his glare steadily, trying his best to still his shaking. “My mother is dead.” His voice breaks a bit here, but he pushes on nevertheless. “I'm only a slave who works in the yards. I don't have a family anymore, or friends... I’m pretty sure my master is dead, too, if this is everyone left. I just want to read, to learn. I don’t want to die yet. Please, just... _please_.” 

The man’s grip on his chin tightens, and Luma screws his eyes shut, certain he is about to earn a blaster shot in the face. To his surprise, however, the man releases his grip. He opens his eyes slowly, cautiously, watches the man as he straightens and clasps his hands together behind his back in a business-like manner. 

“Very well,” the man says casually, almost carelessly. “You may be of some use. We are always in need of more bright young science officer recruits. What is your name, boy?”

With that, the man holds out a gloved hand. He takes it, rises shakily to his feet. “Luma Pershing, sir.”

“Luma Pershing, I'm Captain Gideon. The Empire welcomes your service.”

Luma follows Gideon away from the survivors and troopers and tries _(fails)_ to ignore the sounds of blaster fire behind him.

*

For the next twenty years, he survives and makes himself useful.

“You’ll stay here to train,” Gideon tells him on that first day, gesturing to the entrance of the Imperial ship’s barracks for science officers in training. Men, women, and creatures of various species in lab coats mill about inside, some curiously eyeing Gideon and the new boy. Luma notes with a growing sense of dread there are no other children in the barracks to be seen.

Gideon steps toward him, takes hold of his chin once more and forces him to meet his eyes.“You are my first recruit for the Imperial Science Department, Luma Pershing. Understand that what you do here reflects directly on me. So make the Empire proud. Make _me_ proud.”

It isn’t a question, but Luma feels compelled to respond with a determined nod.

_I can do this._

Gideons levels him another long stare and nods. “Good boy.”

He finds that although he is, as he suspected, by far the youngest science officer recruit, he is quickly able to gain a favorable reputation for himself. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel limited by his surroundings. While Prim had only one meager library (it had only taken him roughly a year to read through every available book and scroll), the Imperial archives give him access to _millions_ of books, songs, and records from across the galaxy. Instead of spending the majority of his time doing manual labor and ship repairs in Marin’s yard with the occasional library visit as a treat, his new commanding officers encourage him and his fellow recruits to delve into the information archives as often as possible, to learn as much as they can about whatever topics interest them. Even better, whereas before he only had Marin’s shipyard scraps to experiment with, he has practically unlimited access to cutting-edge technology.

He reads, he experiments, he invents, he learns, and for the first time, he feels like he is living up to his true potential. 

The real challenge, his superior officers discover, is holding his interest for any longer than a handful of weeks. He excels at engineering due to his years as Marin’s slave, but he soon finds himself bored of designing countless iterations of TIE fighters and hovertanks. So he dabbles in all areas the Imperial Science Department has to offer, hopping gleefully from project to project as quickly as his mind can manage. His superior officers, wanting to encourage the young prodigy, let him.

He spends a few months when he’s twelve creating language matrices to update the Empire’s translator droids into something that outpaces anything the galaxy had seen before. At age fourteen, he creates an alternative fuel for Imperial ships that lasts twice as long as typical starfuel. When he is fifteen, he develops a percussive cannon so powerful it can take out a Rebellion X-Wing, but so compact it can be wielded by a single stormtrooper. At sixteen, he creates a serum that can alter the genetics of a human fetus to make it grow stronger, faster, and smarter than it was ever meant to.

The last one causes a stir - there are whispers from higher ups about the possibilities of genetically modified troopers. Luma, however, shrugs it off - he is less concerned with what the Empire will do with his inventions and more concerned with whether he can push the boundaries of his own abilities.

Gideon, who checks in on him whenever he returns from his missions, is particularly proud of his gene modification serum. He twitches half a smile Luma’s way, puts a hand on his shoulder, _squeezes,_ and tells him, “ _Excellent,_ Luma. Truly.” 

He tries not to be too pleased and continues to make himself useful.

*

At age seventeen, Luma learns that the heart is a dangerous thing.

The rumor spreads through the trooper ranks like wildfire, so much so that it even reaches the typically insular science department.

“Did you hear, Luma?” Ti’la says, adjusting her goggles as she leans over her microscope. “Apparently they caught two dark troopers together in a custodial closet. Your Admiral Gideon is executing them tomorrow.” 

He frowns at her. “Caught together?” he repeats, brow furrowed in confusion. He’s no longer the youngest recruit in the science department, but in moments like this, moments where he knows he’s missing something crucial, he still feels that way. Most of the other officers had lives before joining the Empire, friends and family, and had an understanding of the outside world. Luma, on the other hand, joined at such a young age and was a slave long before that. Upon his recruitment, even, he’d thrown himself so entirely into his work that he didn’t have much of a life outside his service to the Empire. He’s genius enough to have a keen awareness of the incredible amount of life and culture to which he remains painfully ignorant.

Ti’la laughs, though not unkindly, and waggles her eyebrows at him. “You know. They were caught. _Together_.”

He flushes, despite himself. _Ah_. “They were idiots then,” he says, voice sharp. “They should have known what would happen to them. Temporary biological satisfaction is not worth losing your life."

“You’ve never been in love, hun?” she asks with a wistful smile.

This is why he likes Ti’la. She reminds him of his mother, though she is only ten years older than him. Since he joined the science department all those years ago, she’s taken him under her wing, showing him the ropes, making sure he never overworks himself. She always calls him “hun” and helps him back to his bunk whenever he inevitably falls asleep slumped over his desk in the lab.

“No, of course not,” he snaps. “All I care about is the work. And, you know, not getting killed. Love isn’t worth it. It’s a biochemical reaction in the brain leftover from our rudimentary evolutionary origins. Hormones overriding higher intellect - it's ridiculous. Illogical. Only idiots think love has any real value."

She snorts and ruffles his hair, ignoring his squawks of protest, and says, “You might feel differently one day. I just hope when that time comes you’re somewhere far away. You’re too good for this place, Luma.”

In spite of his better judgement, this is another reason he likes Ti’la. She never takes his snide barbs too seriously. She remembers how scared he was when he first arrived all those years ago - she sees past the prickly, protective walls he’s put up around himself.

But sentiment like that, Luma reminds himself, is dangerous. It’s feelings like that that get you killed. 

Later, when Gideon comes to him with an idea for creating a battalion of all-droid dark troopers, Luma knows the man is right.

Love _(humanity)_ is simply another problem for science to solve. 

*

When he is eighteen and _finally_ a doctor, Gideon, now a Moff, makes him his chief science officer. 

“Your superiors tell me they have taught you everything they can. In fact, I suspect you may have taught a few of them a thing or two,” Gideon says, that half-smile playing about his lips. “You have far exceeded my expectations, son. I think it’s time you joined me on my cruiser.”

Luma freezes. _Son?_

He… doesn't know what to make of that.

His next thought is a resounding: _Shit._

Not that spending more time with Gideon would be _bad,_ necessarily. While the man will never cease to terrify him, Gideon has made an effort to remain in his life for the last eight years, visiting in-between missions, bringing him (admittedly cold) words of advice, encouragement, and the occasional gift for his many experiments. 

_(On one memorable occasion, Gideon had outdone himself. He’d strutted into Luma’s lab and, brusque as ever, set a massive, opalescent stone on the table in front of him._

_“For your studies.”_

_Luma goggled at the stone, then at Gideon. “Is that - is that a krayt dragon pearl? Oh, sir, how did you get your hands on this? It’s - krayt dragons are - you could have -!”_

_Gideon’s lip twitched at his histrionics. “I managed.”_

_“But sir, these are_ so _valuable... Surely, you could find a better use for it than my experiments? You could sell it for -”_

_“It is indeed valuable,” Gideon said, an odd caution coloring his voice that Luma hadn’t heard from him before. “But so are you.”_

_Luma’s breath froze in his chest._

_“And so is the Empire,” he continued curtly. “See what use you can make of this.”)_

Gideon sees his value, he knows. After eight years of proving himself, Gideon finally sees him as worthy of his time, his advice, and that means he is finally safe with him. At least, as much as one could be safe with Gideon.

And yet.

He knows the kind of work the Empire sends Gideon to do. Wet work. Information extraction. Torture. He’s been largely sheltered from the horrors of the Empire during his time in the science department. Can he handle what Gideon will undoubtedly expect of him?

 _Shit_. He’s been quiet for far too long.

Gideon’s half-smile is gone. “What do you say, Dr. Pershing?”

_Make yourself useful. Survive._

“It would be my honor, sir,” he lies.

*

Being Moff Gideon’s chief science officer is every bit of what he feared.

Gone are the days of endless encouraged experimentation, research, and invention. His main priority now, as Gideon demands, is information extraction.

Luma, as always, resolves to keep his head down and do as he is told. While Gideon seems to - or at least _pretends_ to - have some strange attachment to him, he has seen what the man does to officers who so much as hesitate before heeding an order. He doesn’t dare risk his wrath. 

The worst part of focusing on information extraction is that he suddenly finds himself in need of sentient lifeforms upon which to test his inventions. Gideon’s missions never leave him in short supply of prisoners, and eventually, Luma runs out of reasonable excuses to further delay his experiments.

_Just do as you’re told. Survive._

His first experimental subject is a captured Rebel soldier. Gideon wants information on a Rebel base, but even more so, he wants to see Luma’s invention in action. He’s just put the finishing touches on his newest device - a nerve disruptor that makes all pain receptors in the body fire off at once.

She’s a blue Twi’lek with large, tear-filled eyes and a piercing scream. She gives Gideon the information he wants after Luma deploys his machine for a mere three minutes. 

The Twi’lek pants, leaning back heavily against the chair she’s strapped to. Her expression is empty as she stares at the ceiling.

Luma eyes the scanners and jots down some notes for his research. He feels a bit ill upon noting how quickly the Rebel soldier, surely trained in resisting torture, succumbed to his invention. 

“Excellent, Dr. Pershing. Quite impressive. Your machine is incredibly effective,” Gideon praises, skimming a gloved hand across the nerve disruptor’s various knobs and dials.

All he can bring himself to do in response is nod numbly. He doesn’t trust his words to not turn into a scream. 

Gideon turns his attention back to the Twi'lek. “Now, Doctor. Turn it back on. This time, leave it, please. I would like to see the full range of your invention’s capabilities.”

Luma freezes.

_No. No, no, no -_

_“_ Was there more information you wanted from her, sir?” he says carefully.

Gideon’s lip twitches downward. _Not good._ “No.”

He pauses. For far, far too long.

Gideon’s eyes begin to get that dangerous glint Luma has only seen directed at others before. Others who did not survive for very long.

_Shit._

“I understand that you find this work distasteful,” Gideon begins. He takes a single step forward, and it takes every ounce of Luma’s self control not to bolt.

“N-no, no sir -”

“Please do not bother, Dr. Pershing. You are a man of a great many talents. Lying, however, is not one of them.”

_Shit, shit, shit -_

Gideon closes the remaining space between them and, instead of the slap or tase that he fears, a gloved hand brushes his cheek. He is torn between leaning into the touch and wrenching his face from the man’s reach.

“It’s alright. It’s one of the reasons I trust you, Luma. Every thought that impressive mind of yours has plays across your face at every moment, clear as day. Those eyes of yours betray you. In fact,” he says with a prickled softness, “I don’t believe you could deceive me if you tried.” 

It takes everything Luma has not to gulp at the thinly veiled warning. The part of his brain not currently paralyzed in fear makes a note to invest in some protective eyewear - goggles, glasses, _anything_. 

“However,” Gideon continues, voice icy with a simmering undercurrent of fury, “you must understand that it is not an innocent being I am telling you to execute. It is a terrorist who would kill you in a moment if given the opportunity. With the information we’ve extracted from her, we have saved Imperial lives. Be proud of what you’ve done here, and finish the job. You have been extraordinarily _useful_ to me, Luma, and I would like for you to remain so.”

His wording is not a coincidence, and they both know it.

Luma makes a valiant effort to school his expression into something resembling neutrality. “Understood, sir.”

And so, he does as he always does - he follows orders.

He turns on his machine with a trembling finger and wishes desperately that he didn’t understand Ryl. In her final moments, the soldier cries out for her parents in her mother tongue. 

If, in a moment of weakness later in his quarters, he sobs himself to sleep and dreams of being somewhere, _anywhere_ else, well. No one had to know.

*

He is thirty when the Empire is defeated.

The scream that tears from Gideon’s throat when they receive word of what happened to the second Death Star will stay with Luma for the rest of his days.

Gideon collapses to his hands and knees, making a horrible keening sound like an animal in pain. His shaking hands scramble to find purchase on the cold, smooth floor of the light cruiser’s control room.

Luma is bizarrely reminded of himself twenty years earlier, on his hands and knees, clawing wildly at the ground, his whole world collapsed around him. He knows what that feels like, and despite himself, he feels pity for the man.

He shoots a warning glance to the other officers and troopers in the hull, and they get the hint. Though as a science officer he shouldn’t hold much authority, it is known amongst the crew that Gideon holds Luma in high regard so they tend to listen to the few orders he bothers to give. Not to mention Gideon has killed troopers for seeing much, much less. They file out quickly, giving Luma and Gideon the room.

Once they are alone, he kneels by the man’s side, steels himself, and does the single bravest thing he’s done since joining the Empire - he places a tentative hand on Gideon’s heaving back.

The man freezes at his touch, but Luma doesn't retreat. 

“Sir,” is all he can say, meekly.

He’s at a loss for words. While he still doesn’t care for the Empire or its mission as Gideon does, he’s just lost countless coworkers, a few he would even call friends, who worked on the Death Star. People he’d trained with. People who took him, a scared ten year old child who lost his whole world, under their wings. Decent people who - like him - were just trying to survive.

And Ti’la. Oh, no. _Ti’la_. 

“They’re all gone,” Gideon whispers hoarsely. “Emperor Palpatine was on the Death Star. We’re one of perhaps ten star cruisers left.”

Luma can’t tell who is shaking more - himself or Gideon, when two memories come to him, unbidden: Ti’la, her hand gently ruffling his hair, saying, “You’re too good for this place, Luma," and his mother, clutching him tightly to her heart, whispering in his ear, “You need to survive for me, baby, no matter what.” 

And then, a dangerous thought strikes him: 

_Is this my chance to run?_

It’s tempting. He could run to the escape pods, go to some backwater planet, change his name, open a small ship repair to get by. The troopers wouldn’t stop him - hell, some of them might get into pods of their own. 

And then, at the precise moment he’s considering making a break for a pod and never looking back, Gideon does something that shocks him to his very core. The man sits back from his kneeling position and leans against Luma, still trembling. With a quiet pressure of their sides meeting, Gideon accepts his offered comfort.

They sit there a moment, side by side, sharing the grief, and Luma knows that this moment of weakness is not something Gideon would share with just anyone.

 _He actually trusts me_. _More than most. Quite possibly, more than anyone still alive._

_...Fuck._

Eventually, they pull themselves to their feet and Gideon is back to his old self, giving commandments over the coms about regrouping with remaining Imperial warships in the Outer Rim.

And so, Luma pushes all thoughts of fleeing the Empire to the back of his mind. Gideon is still alive, after all, and he knows now, deep in his core, that the man will never let him go.

If he’s going to run, he’ll need to do it when he is far out of Gideon’s reach. Even then, there’s only a slim chance he could escape the man’s clutches for long - at least, not without help. And who would help a man like him?

He feels much, much older than thirty.

*

Luma is thirty-four when Gideon approaches him with The Plan.

The Empire has been run ragged for the last four years. The New Republic grows in strength every day, while Gideon grows more and more desperate with every failed mission.

There still is, he realizes, some form of authority that managed to survive the destruction of the second Death Star, or perhaps hadn't been on the ship when it was destroyed. The Moff gets his orders from somewhere, after all. But all of Gideon’s cunning cannot make up for the Empire's sheer lack of numbers.

All the while, Luma watches warily from his place at Gideon’s side. While he feels some relief that the Empire can no longer carry out its more sinister plots, Gideon has changed. He is less the controlled, calculating man who took him in as a boy. He’s wilder now, more vicious. More prone to impulse and fits of rage. Violence for violence’s sake.

Before the Death Star, Luma had occasionally seen glimpses of the man behind the mask, moments where he could sense the ghost of humanity, possibly even some sort of emotion the man felt for him. But for the last four years, those glimpses into Gideon the man have all but ceased. Gideon, a vicious machine for the Empire, is all that remains. 

So, he keeps his head down, keeps his eyes hidden behind his tinted glasses _(Gideon, the pre-Death Star Gideon, had said nothing, but eyed him in amusement when he’d worn them for the first time)_ , and hopes he is still useful to this new version of the man who spared him all those years ago.

And then, the Moff comes to him with an idea.

“At this point,” Gideon admits after explaining the tentative plan, “this may be the Empire’s last hope.”

At first, he doesn’t consider the implications of the idea. His first thought, as always, is not _Should I?_ but _Can I?_

“Force-sensitive strandcast soldiers...?” he murmurs, not without some excitement at the novelty of it. “It’s an ambitious thought, certainly. According to the data I had access to from Grand Admiral Thrawn’s research base, what gives Force-sensitive beings their power is high levels of something called midi-chlorians in their cells... We don’t know much more about them, though. If I could somehow use existing strandcast technology, my gene serum, and really research midi-chlorians - understand what they are and how they work, maybe -”

“Is this something you can do for me, Luma?” Gideon presses.

He pauses in surprise and feels a bit of hope begin to stir in his chest. Gideon hasn’t called him anything but “Dr. Pershing” in years. He chooses his next words carefully. 

“There’s a chance. A small, small, chance. I can’t say for certain, but… I might be able to do it,” he offers cautiously.

And then, the old Gideon is back for just a moment, looking at him like he hung every damn star in the galaxy, and he nearly forgets all traitorous notions of escape. _(Nearly.)_

So that’s that. He is going to make himself useful. If it means cloning and gene-splicing an army of Force-wielding strandcasts, well. He’s done the impossible before.

All he needs is a subject, possibly a force-sensitive creature...


	2. The Asset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Luma Pershing begins executing Gideon's Plan, meets the Asset and the Mandalorian, and falls just a little bit in love with one of them. A chance is taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who left comments and kudos on the last chapter! Honestly, I would have kept writing even if no one read my first chapter because I'm now obsessed with Luma and his story, but you all inspired me to get this chapter out faster. 
> 
> Quick notes about the chapter: I gave the Client a name and rank since he doesn't have one in canon. Also, Luma has a filthy, filthy mouth, the little science nerd, but I think the Star Wars curses can sound a bit goofy sometimes and can break the immersion a bit during serious scenes, so I don't use them too often. So in this story, pretend like both typical American English curses and goofy space curses exist in harmony, pls. 
> 
> Also, shout out to Wookiepedia for providing the transcripts for the scenes from The Mandalorian episodes 1-3 I've included in this chapter. Any variations in dialogue from the canonical scripts are due to me adjusting as needed for my fic, not errors on their part. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!

Gideon, like always, outdoes himself.

In a matter of weeks after Luma agrees to help him execute The Plan _(or Operation Last-Ditch, as Luma designates it, though he doesn’t dare say it aloud)_ , Gideon builds him a state-of-the-art research lab nestled in the volcanic fields of Nevarro. It’s beautiful, if in a cold, distant, intimidating sort of way, and it even comes complete with lab assistants, a first for him. A dozen or so science officers and recruits who hadn’t been unlucky enough to be stationed on the Death Star five years ago, Gideon informs him, now work for _him._

When he tries to stammer out a thanks, the Moff dismisses it. “There’s no need to thank me, Dr. Pershing. Pull this off, and the Empire will be in your debt. For now, begin your research. I have managed to grant you access to all classified files regarding the Jedi and midi-chlorians confiscated from the Republic during the Purge. They will be, I imagine, incredibly helpful to you and your team.”

Luma’s eyes widen behind his glasses. _Woah._ _Really_ _?_ He quivers with barely restrained excitement at the thought of all the new, previously forbidden knowledge just _waiting_ for him.

He knows how relentlessly the Empire eradicated all information about Jedi from public historical records. The only information most people have now about Jedi and the Force is by word of mouth - in places where the Empire’s hold had been strongest, some think the very existence of Jedi and their powers were myths. If the Empire is granting him and his new assistants access to classified information, that was _big._ Luma hadn’t realized how much trust the Empire - how much trust _Gideon_ \- was placing in him to execute this mission.

His mind is still racing when Gideon begins heading toward the door. He feels his heart drop into his stomach and calls out before he can stop himself. “W-Wait! Sir? Where, um. Where are you going?”

Gideon looks back at him, his expression carefully vacant. “I’m off to find you a force-sensitive subject. I anticipate that you will need one for your research, yes?”

“Well, yes, but…” He looks back at the gaggle of new assistants nervously. Some look back at him with interest, while others avert their gaze in respect. _I_ _can’t believe I’m in charge of all these people..._ “You - You’re leaving me?”

He regrets the words as soon as they leave his lips. He _hates_ how dependent he’s become on the very man that features so often in his nightmares.

_(And yet, he’s been by the man’s side since he was eighteen, and been under his watchful eye since he was ten. Gideon is cold, distant, and frightening, sure, but he’s also the closest thing to a parent he’s had since his mother’s death. The closest thing to a friend he’s had since the Death Star, since Ti’la. He finds himself trapped in the unending paradox of craving protection from the very man he most needs protection from.)_

Gideon stares him down, seeing through him as he always does.

“I will be back soon,” he says eventually. “I trust you will have plenty to occupy yourself with in the meantime, Dr. Pershing.”

And then he leaves, and Luma is left with a hole in his chest he doesn’t know what to do with.

 _No, this is good,_ he tells himself firmly. _No Gideon means no torturing, no killing._ _Maybe_ _less bad dreams, more sleep. This could be like the good old days at the science academy - all I need to do is research and experiment. All I need to do is focus on is the work. I can do this. I can._

He takes a deep breath, straightens his lab coat, stands as tall as his small frame will allow, and turns to face his new team.

“Hello, everyone. I’m Dr. Pershing. Let’s get started, shall we?”

*

A month later, Gideon bursts into his new lab without so much as a warning.

The lab assistants instantly scuttle away, giving the two men privacy. Luma blinks up at the man in surprise. He scrubs his eyes behind his lenses, wondering if he’d yet again fallen asleep at his desk.

“I have a Nikto mercenary in my possession. I believe she has information on a potential force-sensitive subject, but she is reluctant to talk to me,” Gideon says. _(He’s never been one for small talk.)_ “I will require your assistance, Dr. Pershing.”

_Ah. Of course._

And so, Luma assists. He doesn’t hesitate _(not anymore)_ , just nods numbly, gets up from his desk, and follows Gideon past the eerily glowing strandcast tubes and into the dank holding cell.

Part of him hates how used to the screams he’s become over the years. Another part of him is too tired to care anymore.

Some time later, maybe minutes, maybe hours, Luma can’t be sure, he is watching the Nikto jerk uncontrollably on the table, screaming in Kintani, _“Please, I will tell you whatever you want, please, please_ _just_ _stop, please -!”_

Tears run down her cheeks in rivulets, drip down her horns, and splatter onto the cement floor below.

Luma shuts off his machine with a practiced flip of a switch and gives Gideon a slight nod. Experience has taught him she’s now at the point where she will gladly answer any and all questions the Moff has for her.

“Tell me about the creature your associates have in their possession,” Gideon commands.

The mercenary stares at him in confusion, her chest rapidly rising and falling in panicked breaths.

 _Ah._ This happens sometimes during torture, Luma now knows. Linguistic regression - a psychological response to extreme fear and pain - was a common defense mechanism. A victim of torture will sometimes revert back to only understanding the language they spoke as a child. With subjects whose mother tongue isn’t Basic or any of the handful of languages Gideon knows, his gift for linguistics often comes in handy.

He translates Gideon’s demands for her into Kintani. _“He wants to know about the creature your mercenary camp is holding.”_

Her watery eyes alight in recognition. _“The child?”_ she croaks, licking her dry lips. _“It has a powerful magic. We must keep it asleep so it does not hurt us.”_

Luma raises an eyebrow. ( _What?) “Child?”_ he repeats, wondering if he needs to brush up on his Kintani. _“Are you sure? What species?”_

_“I do not know. I have never seen anything like it. It has been in our tribe for decades. I am told it is fifty years old, but it is a child. It is very small and does not speak any language. It only cries when it is awake. It does not understand much, and_ _hurts us when it is afraid. Please, sir, please, I have children of my own, small children, they do not have anyone else to -"_

“What did she say?” Gideon cuts her off as she begins to plead. He knows when a subject stops saying anything useful. Begging for one’s life sounds the same in every language.

“She says it’s a child,” Luma informs him slowly, carefully. A cold, creeping terror begins to flood his chest, quickening his pulse. “A force-sensitive child, though it seems that it ages extremely slowly. She says it’s been in her tribe for decades, that it’s maybe fifty years old, but it hasn’t aged. She says she’s never seen another of the same species before, that it’s small.”

Gideon’s eyes alight with intrigue. “A small child? That is excellent news. A child will be easier to control.”

_Oh, no. No, no, no, no._

Gideon has him extract the location of the mercenary camp from the Nikto - a sleepy valley in the middle of nowhere on the desert planet Arvala-7 - and commands Luma to dispose of her once she’s told them everything she can.

Luma doesn’t hesitate to flip the switch on his machine for the final time. Doesn’t flinch when the screams get higher pitched, more desperate, and eventually stop.

_(He’s gotten good at blocking out the effects of his sessions with Gideon while in front of the Moff. Late at night in his bunk - in his dreams - is a different story, but, well. What Gideon doesn’t know can’t hurt him.)_

As he unbuckles the limp corpse of the mercenary from the table, though, he can’t stop his hands from shaking. He tries to still them, but Gideon notices.

_(Gideon always notices.)_

“Interesting, Dr. Pershing. I thought you’d gotten over your adversity to torture,” he remarks, almost casually, but Luma knows better. “Surely, you’re used to it after all these years?”

“Yes, sir,” he says, though not knowing how entirely truthful the statement is. “It’s just that... If the subject really is a child - I don’t know. I just. I’ve never hurt a kid before.”

Gideon considers him for a long moment, expressionless. Luma pushes his opaque lenses defensively up the bridge of his nose with a trembling finger.

“You’ve always been a soft one, Dr. Pershing,” he says at last, though not harshly as Luma feared. “But I’m afraid this mission will require a firmer resolve from you. You have combed through the files on the Death Star’s destruction. You’ve watched the security vids, yes? You have seen the impact a single Jedi can have.”

He pales and nods wordlessly. Until he’d seen the evidence for himself, he’d always assumed the rumors about Luke Skywalker, about what a single Jedi could do, were rumors, mere exaggerations of the truth.

The security vids proved he’d been very, _very_ wrong in that assumption.

“Then you understand,” Gideon says, eyes glinting dangerously, “that a force-wielding child could grow to become a terrible threat to the Empire that may, potentially, need to be neutralized.”

Suddenly, there is _not enough air_ in the room.

“ _If_ , however, you can find some purpose for the child in your experiments - and if it doesn’t appear to be an immediate threat - I see no need for any harm to come to it,” Gideon continues.

He lets out a shaky breath. _Oh, thank the stars_.

“Y-yes, sir,” he stammers, trying not to sound as wholly relieved as he feels. “Midi-chlorians are found in the highest concentrations in the bloodstream, so if I can keep the child alive and healthy enough to take regular blood samples, it would be an invaluable asset to my research. If the child is small, it won’t be of much use to me dead, after all. Not enough material to extract.”

Gideon eyes him knowingly for a long moment. “Very well, then. The most harm that will come to the child is the mere prick of a needle. However, should the Asset prove too powerful, too difficult to control, you understand what is expected of you.”

It’s not a question, but he nods numbly and tries in vain to ignore the sudden appearance of an iron weight in his gut. “Yes, sir.”

_Get it together, Luma. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, if that’s what it takes to survive, then so be it._

Gideon gives him a final long, searching glance, then nods approvingly. “Very good. I am going to send you to rendezvous with Admiral Grisham and his platoon. He has a small base a few towns over next to the bounty hunter’s guild. He will oversee securing the Asset, and you will ensure that it is healthy upon arrival. He has a small laboratory he will allow you to commandeer - it might even be wise to begin extracting samples from the Asset right away, should anything unpleasant happen during transport back to your lab.”

An ugly twist of fear writhes in his gut. He’s heard many things about Admiral Grisham, none of them pleasant. And without Gideon’s protection, he’s all too aware he is vulnerable. _Weak._ “You’re sending me alone? Where will you be?”

In the old days, before the Death Star, Gideon might have twitched a half-smile at him here, put a comforting hand on his shoulder, maybe even called him _Luma_ _._ Now, he simply says, “Not far, Dr. Pershing. I am never far,” and Luma knows it is not intended to be a comfort.

_(It’s a warning.)_

*

Luma _definitely does not want to die,_ but the Mandalorian pointing a blaster in his face for merely walking into a room doesn’t seem to particularly care what he wants.

He had been _(foolishly, he now realizes)_ thrilled when Admiral Grisham told him the bounty hunter Greef Karga recommended for the securing the Asset was a real life _Mandalorian_ _._ He’d even brushed up on his Mando’a in the Admiral’s makeshift lab the previous night, hoping he’d get a chance to practice in person. Mandalorians are rare these days, after all, and there are always subtleties in languages that can only be communicated through a native speaker. And Luma, ever the perfectionist, wants his pronunciation to be _flawless_.

This particular Mandalorian, though, doesn’t seem like he’s in the mood for a chat.

“Freeze!” one of the Admiral’s stormtroopers shout. “Drop your weapon!”

“No!” Luma cries, raising his arms in front of his face defensively. “No, no, no, no. Pardon! Uh, sorry. I, uh... didn't... Um. Mean to alarm,” he stammers, trying to flash a pacifying grin to the Mandalorian (which, he’s fairly certain, comes out as more of a grimace).

_I’m nothing to worry about, see?_

The Mandalorian holds his blaster steady, gloved finger on the trigger.

 _Well, then_.

Admiral Grisham walks around the table and stands in front of the Mandalorian. “This is Dr. Pershing. Please, excuse his lack of decorum - his enthusiasm outweighs his discretion. Please, lower your blaster,” he says in that soft, hissing voice of his that makes Luma’s skin crawl.

He hopes his glasses hide the glare he sends the Admiral’s way. The man has done nothing but insult and belittle Luma since Gideon had dropped him off at his base like a lost loth-cat two days ago, and his patience is rapidly wearing thin.

_(“Ah, Dr. Pershing,” the Admiral had leered. “A pleasure to meet the Empire’s best and brightest science officer. It’s so lovely to see that the Moff can, occasionally, share his toys.”)_

He has to remember, however, that the man far outranks him, and Gideon isn’t here to protect him. No, the Moff had left him on his own to deal with the Admiral’s creepy insinuations and insults, incompetent and trigger-happy stormtroopers, and a bounty hunter who _will not stop pointing a blaster in his face_.

The Mandalorian doesn’t budge. “Have them lower theirs first.”

_Oh, for fuck’s sake!_

“We have you four to one,” the same stormtrooper scoffs.

“I like those odds,” the Mandalorian returns evenly.

Luma knows from his research that a typical Mandalorian can take on twenty trained soldiers in armed combat, so he very much does _not_ like those odds.

“Greef Karga said you were expensive. Very expensive. Please sit,” the Admiral says, _finally_ signaling for the troopers to lower their blasters, and the Mandalorian follows suit. Luma lets out a shaky breath of relief.

Grisham then pulls out part of the reward, a few ingots of beskar worth a small fortune, and offers one of the bricks to the Mandalorian. “Go ahead. It’s real.”

The Mandalorian hesitates for a moment, then takes it in his hand, turning it over and pausing upon seeing the Empire’s insignia stamped in the corner. Luma can’t help but flinch at the sight, knowing exactly where the beskar originated from and how it came to be in the Empire’s possession.

 _Why did Grisham not think to give him unmarked beskar instead? The Mandalorian could kill_ _all of_ _us right here,_ _easily,_ _and with good reason._ _Giving him Empire-marked beskar is as good as spitting on the graves of all the Mandalorians who died in the Purge!_ _Does he have a death wish?!_

To his surprise, the Mandalorian decides not to murder them all right then and there. Instead, he wordlessly hands the ingot back to the Admiral.

 _...Huh. Then again, his people have_ _been scattered_ _since the Purge._ _Maybe_ _he needs the beskar more than revenge on the Empire?_

“This is only a down payment, of course. I have a camtono of beskar waiting for you upon delivery of the Asset,” the Admiral says, giving the man a slimy smile.

“Alive,” Luma insists. _(_ _Please, I don’t need another death on my hands. Especially a child’s.)_

The Admiral eyes him in obvious irritation. “Yes. Alive. Although, I acknowledge that bounty hunting is a complicated profession. This being the case, proof of termination is also acceptable for a lower fee.”

Luma’s stomach drops. _What the hell is he doing?_ “That is _not_ what we agreed upon,” he snaps.

 _Why is Grisham changing the deal? Gideon said that he would work with me to_ _obtain_ _the Asset alive for blood sampling. He promised me, gave me his word. Doesn’t he know what happens to people who disobey Gideon’s orders?_

Grisham waves away his concern, much to Luma’s growing fear and indignation. “I’m simply being pragmatic.”

_Pragmatic? Please. You’re up to something._

He opens his mouth to protest once more when the Mandalorian cuts him off. “Let’s see the puck.”

“I'm afraid,” the Admiral admits, turning back to the bounty hunter, “that discretion dictates a less traditional agreement. We can only offer you a tracking fob.”

That’s his cue. Luma shakes off all hateful thoughts toward the Admiral for the moment and hands the fob to the Mandalorian, hoping that the man doesn’t notice his trembling hands.

 _Please,_ _just_ _don’t kill it,_ he thinks desperately.

“What's the chain code?” the Mandalorian asks.

“I’m afraid we can only provide the last four digits,” the Admiral says.

“Their age? That's all you can give me?” the bounty hunter says dubiously.

“Yes,” the Admiral nods. “They're fifty years old. We can also give you last reported positional data. Between that and the fob, a man of your skill should make short work of this.”

Luma tries not to flinch at Grisham’s words. He was against this deception from the start. Mandalorians, according to his research, love their children fiercely. Stars only know what the man will do when he realizes the fifty year old Asset is, in fact, a child of a species with an incredibly long lifespan. Granted, Greef Karga’s records show the man is a ruthless bounty hunter with a staggering confirmed kill count and no qualms about taking in marks dead or alive - but a child, he knows, might be different.

 _(For me it_ _certainly_ _is.)_

The Admiral, though, insisted upon secrecy of the Asset’s true age. “The less the bounty hunter savage knows, the better,” he’d said, waving away Luma’s concerns.

As the warrior rises and turns to leave, the Admiral can’t help but toss out one last jab to the man’s armored back. “The beskar belongs back into the hands of a Mandalorian. It is good to restore the natural order of things after a period of such disarray, don't you agree?”

The Mandalorian pauses, back still turned to them, and Luma’s breath catches in his throat. To his astonishment, however, the man leaves without a word.

_(...Interesting.)_

As Luma scuttles back to the safety of his makeshift lab, he sends one last fervent wish out into the universe that when all is said and done, he won’t have a child’s death on his conscience.

*

Two days later, the Mandalorian returns with the Asset. _Alive._

The child is green, wrinkled, and incredibly small, with eyes so soulful as it peers over the edge of its floating crib that Luma is taken aback for a moment.

 _It’s intelligent._ _Fully_ _aware of its surroundings,_ he realizes, stomach sinking. _It’s going to be so confused and afraid..._

Part of him had been hoping for an unintelligent species, or even a semi-sentient lifeform like a rancor or a kybuck so he wouldn’t have to feel quite so terrible about seizing blood samples it. He should have known better, though. High midi-chlorian levels almost always come with great intelligence.

The Admiral is up instantly, approaching the crib with barely contained glee. “ _Yes._ Yes, yes, yes.”

Luma shakes his head, tries to remember himself. He approaches the Asset, pretends not to see the endearing way its ears perk up curiously at him, and gives its vitals a quick scan. “Yes,” he confirms. “Very healthy, yes.”

_(So the Mandolorian kept it alive after all. Interesting, indeed.)_

“How many fobs did you give out?” the bounty hunter asks stiffly.

Luma does a double-take at the Admiral. _Wait, what?_

Grisham bares his teeth in what he assumes is meant to be a smile. “This Asset was of extreme importance to me. I had to ensure its delivery.”

 _He was trying to get the Asset killed behind my back,_ he realizes, a pit of dread growing in his stomach. _What is he_ _really_ _up to? Who did Gideon leave me with?_

“But to the winner,” continues the Admiral, setting the camtono of beskar on the table, “go the spoils.”

The Mandalorian takes a brick and inspects it thoughtfully.

“Such a large bounty for such a small package,” the Admiral says, a taunting lilt to his voice.

 _To hell with this._ Luma isn’t going to stay and watch while the Admiral plays verbal chicken with a _fucking_ _Mandalorian_. He has work to do.

He pushes the Asset’s crib into his makeshift lab and thinks, with some sadness, that was likely the last time he'll ever see a Mandalorian.

*

A closer look at the Asset only provides him with more questions than answers.

From what he can piece together from his own research and the classified Imperial records, only a handful of creatures the same race as the Asset were ever recorded. All were close-lipped about their planet of origin and disappeared and reappeared in and out of history as they pleased. Most notably was the last Jedi High Council member Master Yoda, who vanished during the Great Jedi Purge. He was one of the most powerful Jedi in recorded history, and he was at least nine-hundred years old at the time of his disappearance.

He reaches behind his glasses and scrubs at his eyes to rid himself of the strain of hours of reading, and turns to look at the Asset in wonder. The child looks back at him steadily.

“Fifty and you’re just a baby, and yet this Jedi Master Yoda was supposedly training other Jedi at a hundred years of age, if the historical records are to be believed. Your kind ages... strangely,” he says to the Asset, though he has no idea why.

The Asset merely opens its mouth at him in response, showing off its row of tiny front teeth.

Luma frowns, slightly concerned. “I can’t… I can’t tell if you’re trying to smile at me or if you want to bite me,” he admits.

It’s apparently the correct thing to say, because suddenly the Asset is reaching out for him, opening and closing its claws in want.

He blinks in surprise. “Oh, um. I... probably shouldn’t...”

The Asset continues holding out its little arms in request, staring at him with a gaze so intense it rivals even Gideon’s. Luma, despite himself, relents. “Well, um. Okay? But I’m not good with kids. Or at least, I don’t think I am? I haven’t been around many. So please, um. Please don’t bite me?”

He gingerly reaches out and lifts the Asset from its crib, holding the child at arm’s length. “I _really_ hope you’re not venomous,” he mutters.

The Asset whines and kicks its legs in protest at his awkward grasp, and Luma, pulling from some deep instinct he didn’t realize he had, adjusts his grip so he’s cradling the kid in the crook of his elbow.

The child immediately snuggles into his chest with a small chirp.

_(Oh.)_

“So you’re Force-sensitive, huh? I wonder what your midi-chlorian levels are,” he murmurs to the Asset, placing a cautious hand on its back. “Can you control it yet? Your powers? The mercenary said you could.”

He doesn’t know if the Asset can understand him, but it seems to like when he talks to it as it's currently digging its claws into his lab coat and trying to scramble up onto his narrow shoulders.

“Hey. Hey, now, careful, careful,” he laughs, gently untangling its claws from the rough fabric. “There’s no need for violence. No mauling, please. Let’s be civil.”

Then the Asset actually _giggles_ , and Luma suddenly knows with a horrifying clarity that he’s in a whole world of trouble.

“Having fun, are we?” the Admiral drawls, stepping curtly into the lab. “ _Bonding_?”

Luma stiffens, but doesn’t set the Asset down. “It… it wants to be held, sir. It’s just a baby. I don’t see the need for cruelty.”

The Admiral’s disgust is palpable. “You’re still young, boy. You’re ignorant,” he hisses. “You haven’t seen for yourself what its kind can do.”

Luma may be many things, but he prickles at being called ignorant about anything he’s researched as thoroughly as the Jedi. “I’ve read the classified files. I’ve seen the security vids from the Death Star. I saw Luke Skywalker with his lightsaber, saw what he could do,” he snaps, hackles raised. “I’m anything but ignorant.”

Grisham scoffs. “Skywalker was _one_ Jedi, Dr. Pershing, and a fledgling one at that. In my day, before the Great Purge, the Jedi scum were _everywhere_. There was one in particular we all feared the most. He was the same race as the creature you hold in your arms.”

He nods. “Grand Master Yoda. I was just reading about him.”

The Admiral lets out a guttural, hate-filled _hiss_ at the name, and Luma flinches in surprise. 

“Then you should know the destruction of which he was capable. The _unnatural,_ evil powers he wielded. During the Clone Wars, the battle of Ringo Vinda, he used his powers to rip a crevasse into the planet that swallowed my entire platoon - _two hundred souls_ \- with a wave of his hand. It was by mere chance that I survived.”

The Admiral approaches the Asset’s empty crib and grips it so tightly his knuckles turn white. “That creature may be a baby now, Dr. Pershing, but I assure you: Allow it the chance to grow, and it will become more powerful and unnatural, more _monstrous_ than you could ever imagine.”

He instinctively tightens his grip on the child in his arms and takes a defensive step backward. He feels himself bump into a lab table behind him.

“That - that may be,” he stammers, “but I need to study its blood if I’m going to make the strandcasts force-sensitive. Moff Gideon said that I could - that I _should_ \- keep it alive for my research.”

Grisham _sneers_ at him. “I don't _care_ what the Moff allows his little _pet_ to get away with, Dr. Pershing. I am your commanding officer and I _order_ you to extract the necessary material and finish it.”

The Asset, perhaps sensing his fear, begins to squirm in his arms. Luma looks down absently, then finds himself locking eyes with the child, staring up at him with so much _innocence_ , and his resolve hardens.

_No. Just... No. I’m not letting it die. Not this one._

And then, Luma does the bravest thing he’s done since putting a hand on a sobbing Gideon’s shoulder after the Death Star’s destruction.

“No,” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t betray his terror. _(I’m disobeying a direct order from a superior. If the Admiral were to shoot me right now, he’d be in the right.)_ “Moff Gideon said we wouldn’t harm it. I only need to take some blood samples - its death is not necessary. He explicitly ordered us to bring it back alive, and that’s what I intend to do.”

The Admiral’s eyes widen in surprise for a moment, then narrow in a simmering fury. The two men stare at each other, each waiting for the other to speak, when then the child gives a soft coo, breaking the tension.

Luma suppressed a relieved sigh and sends a silent _‘thank you’_ the Asset’s way.

Grisham scoffs. “Just finish your business quickly, Dr. Pershing, as I can no longer guarantee your safety,” he spits viciously.

Luma merely nods, not daring to even breathe loudly, much less speak. _Message received._

And with that, the Admiral snatches the Asset’s crib and stalks out of the lab.

Luma looks down at the child and sighs. “I guess we’d better get to work, then.”

*

An hour later, he has the child lightly sedated as he monitors its (or rather _his_ , as Luma discovers during a quick physical exam) midi-chlorian levels. He didn’t want the child to be afraid of the small needle or the flashing equipment, after all. He’s eyeing the readings with great interest when all hell breaks loose.

“What does that alarm mean?!” he shouts to the stormtrooper in the hall over the screeching.

“It must be an intruder, sir,” the trooper says, hoisting his blaster at the ready and looking down the hallway.

A squad of guards rush by, but Luma stops the lone trooper before he can join the others “Wait! This child is the most valuable thing here. I need at least one of you in here with me to defend it. I’m useless in a fight,” he admits.

“Yes, sir,” the trooper throws him a quick salute and steps inside the lab. Luma locks it behind him, despite knowing that a well-placed blaster shot could open the doors easily.

 _We’re sitting ducks in here,_ he suddenly realizes, his stomach sinking.

After a few minutes, he hears the shots getting closer. He hears a stormtrooper scream, “He’s in h-!” and give a strangled shout, followed by several sickening thuds.

The shots continue getting closer.

 _Wait, what was it the Nikto said? That they had to keep the child asleep or else it would hurt them?_ Luma hadn’t seen any evidence of the child being able to control its abilities, but perhaps it could defend itself when threatened?

_...And I sedated him. Shit! Now he can’t even defend himself!_

Luma leans over the child, hoping in vain to shake him awake, when the lab doors are forced open. The trooper to his right is shot in the head before he can even aim his weapon.

Luma whirls around and holds his arms up defensively, keeping his body in front of the child, and sees, with some surprise, the Mandalorian aiming his blaster at him. He's wearing a new suit of beskar armor, but his height, build, and the stiff way he carries himself tells Luma it's the same bounty hunter the Admiral hired.

And so, Luma finds himself in the same position from twenty-five years earlier. He pleads _(unashamedly, absolutely begs)_ for his life.

“No, no, no, no, please! Please. No. No, no...”

The Mandalorian raises his blaster higher, and Luma yelps and screws his eyes shut. To his momentary relief, however, the man only shoots the floating lab droid above his head and begins to walk toward him - toward the _child_ \- with determination.

And suddenly, Luma realizes has something besides his own life to beg for.

“No, please. _Please_ don't hurt him. He’s just a child. Please, _no!_ No!” he stammers, mindless with fear as the warrior approaches. Nevertheless, he clutches as tightly as he can to the table behind him, hoping to plant himself between the intruder and the child.

The Mandalorian shoves him aside carelessly, effortlessly, and he crumples to the ground like a newborn dugar deer. He shakes his head to reorient himself and looks back up at the warrior in confusion.

_Why am I still alive?_

The Mandalorian is standing over the child, watching him sleep as Luma’s machines scan him.

“Please, no, no, no -" he repeats dumbly. 

_Don’t hurt the kid, whatever you do,_ _please_ _don’t -_

The Mandalorian aims the blaster back at him and barks, “What did you do to it?”

_Wait, what?_

“I…” He’s too thrown by the question to finish his thought.

_Is he... concerned?_

The Mandalorian steps toward him menacingly and aims the blaster right between Luma’s eyes. “ _What did you do to it?_ ” he repeats, his voice lowering to a deadly growl.

_Fascinating._ _He’s here to save the child, not hurt it. Meaning the child is likely safe with him._

_...Which, in turn, means now it’s only my own skin I need to worry about, not the kid’s._

He raises his hands in what he hopes is a placating manner, and again tries to plead for his life. “I... I protected him! I protected him! If it wasn't for me, he would already be dead! Please, just… please...”

And then, as he cowers on the floor, a realization, a _hope_ sparks in his chest.

_If the Mandalorian is here to save the child from the Empire, that means that he will need to do everything in his power to stay far, far away from Gideon, who will undoubtedly stop at nothing to retrieve the Asset._

_And if anyone can get me away from Gideon, from the Empire, it’s a Mandalorian._ _Particularly one who_ _just infiltrated a secure base on his own_ _without breaking a sweat_ _._

He looks up and sees the Mandalorian with the child bundled in his arms, about to walk out the door and leave him behind forever.

Without thinking, he leaps to his feet and cries, “Ke'pare, gedet’ye! Ni'm pirimmuy. Hiibir ni ti gar. Ni liser gaa'tayl. Gedet'ye.”

_(“Wait, please! I’m useful. Take me with you. I can help. Please.”)_

The Mandalorian freezes in his tracks, then slowly turns to face him. “Did you just… speak perfect Mando’a?” His voice, even through the modulator, is incredulous _(and maybe, if Luma’s being optimistic, intrigued)_.

He tries not to think of twenty-five years ago, of hands clawing the mud, of screaming and rubble and ash, of Gideon, so much younger, asking if he _just_ _understood Mando’a_ -

 _Wait. Did he_ _just_ _say my Mando’a is perfect?_

Luma, bizarrely, feels himself flushing at the unintentional praise. “Well, um. I don’t - I don't know about _perfect._ I’ve never met a native speaker until you, so I’m sure my inflections are slightly off,” he stammers. “But, um. Listen, I’m just a scientist, I’m not a soldier. I’m not loyal to the Empire, or anyone really, I’m only trying to survive. If you help me get out of here, I can help you and the kid escape, too. I’m no fighter, but I can hold him for you and follow while you use both arms to fight. And I know my way around the base, so I can help you route an escape. _Koor_?”

_(Deal?)_

The Mandalorian hesitates for a moment, then the sounds of distant troopers shouting seems to shake him into action. He sighs and hands the sleeping child over to a shocked Luma.

“Fine,” the Mandalorian grunts. “You hold the kid, and you _stay close behind me and do exactly as I say._ Got it?”

Luma’s almost too scared to breath, afraid the smallest movement will wake him up from this dream.   
  
His overactive mind, of course, ruins the moment with a sudden thought. “Hey, you weren’t planning on using the back entrance to escape, right?”

He can’t see the Mandalorian’s expression through his helmet, but he can _feel_ the weight of the man’s suspicious glare. “And if I was?”

It takes everything Luma has not to make a biting comment that would draw the bounty hunter’s rage.

_Well, great. So he’s a bit of an idiot._

“Well,” he says carefully, “I mean, that would lead you right into the heart of town. The town that’s, you know, filled to the brim with bounty hunters. Who all have the puck for your little friend, here. And, by now, likely you as well. You’d be walking right into a trap.”

“I’ve fought my way out of worse,” the Mandalorian replies stiffly.

Luma can’t help but snort at that. _Oh, please._ “Worse than the entirety of the bounty hunter’s guild? I know you Mandalorians are great warriors and all, but that's physically impossible, even for you.”

He winces at his tone _(Gideon would have slapped him for that)_ , but the Mandalorian merely tilts his helmet in interest. “Do you have a better idea?”

He lets out a shaky breath of relief. “Actually,” he says, brandishing his code cylinder, “Ni vaabir.”

_(I do.)_


	3. The Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mandalorian makes a disturbing discovery about his newest stray and makes a decision.  
> Luma gives his new ally valuable information.  
> A deadly confrontation leads to dire consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. This chapter was a difficult one to write - I think I ended up rewriting most of it at least five times before I was finally happy with it. It went quite differently than I had originally planned (and ended up being much longer), but I’m decently satisfied with how things turned out. Please do let me know what you think if you have a moment - I’m a glutton for feedback :)
> 
> Also, I got farther into the animated Clone Wars series and realized I had to revise some of my working timeline of past events for this fic to make them fit better with the canon I believe Favreau/Filoni are working with. Chapters 1 and 2 weren’t really affected (I just had to take out a small reference to Gideon having the Darksaber before he should have), mainly just future chapters and this one. But, since I had to sit down and make a timeline so I stopped confusing myself, I thought I’d include it here in case anyone wants to refer to it if they’re ever unsure about how the canon timeline lines up with Luma’s and Din’s in this fic.
> 
> If you’re not sure what some of these events are, don’t worry - I’ll incorporate information about them into the fic if/when they become relevant.
> 
> 30 BBY - Mandalorian Civil War. Death Watch breaks from Mandalorian society  
> 27 BBY - Din is born  
> 25 BBY - Luma is born  
> 19 BBY - Darth Maul and his forces occupy Mandalore, causing the Night of 1000 Tears. After the Great Jedi Purge, The Old Republic falls and the Age of the Empire begins  
> 18 BBY - Death Watch rescues Din (age 9)  
> 15 BBY - Gideon destroys Prim, takes in Luma (age 10)  
> 2 BBY - Bo-Katan uses the Darksaber to unit all clans of Mandalore (besides Death Watch) to fight against the Empire.  
> 3 BBY - Gideon and Imperial forces crush Bo-Katan’s revolution in the Mandalorian Purge. Gideon takes the Darksaber.  
> 5 ABY - Second Death Star explosion. The Empire falls, and the New Republic begins.  
> 9 ABY - Beginning of The Mandalorian. Luma (35) and Din (37) meet.

And so, they _run_.

“Turn right at the end of this hall, then right again. You’ll eventually see a big door, heavily plated, nine down on the left,” Luma pants at the Mandalorian. He clutches the still-sleeping Asset to his chest and follows closely behind the warrior though the darkened halls of the base.

“The door opens to a system of underground transport tunnels - they’re how the Admiral gets supplies without drawing too much attention from New Republic officers. They go deep under the city to just outside its perimeter in any direction. I’m assuming you have a ship, right? Where is it?”

“Yes, a Razor Crest. It’s in the desert outskirts, canyon-side, maybe a half-kilometer in,” the Mandalorian replies stiffly, his rifle held at the ready.

Luma breathes a sign of relief. _Pre-Empire? Perfect._ _We’ll be off both the New Republic’s and the Empire’s grids in a Razor Crest. If we do manage to get out of here, I could rig a signal scrambler as well if he doesn’t already have one - we’d be practically invisible._

“Good, the tunnels can get us past the Guild and drop us pretty close to your ship. I can access the entrance with my code cylinder. If we move quickly, we might be able to get off-planet before Karga or the troopers catch on.”

His pulse quickens as they pass a security camera fastened to the ceiling. Its red light blinks ominously, watching his and the Mandalorian’s every move. He can’t help but cringe, wondering how Gideon will react when he sees the footage, sees irrefutable evidence of Luma’s betrayal.

Suddenly, the Mandalorian stops in his tracks and raises his free hand in a “wait” signal. Distracted by thoughts of Gideon, Luma runs full-force into the armor-plated back before him. 

_“Oof-!”_

He only manages to keep his balance and grip on the child thanks to a strong hand that reaches out to steady him. He looks down in confusion at the Mandalorian’s hand gripping his elbow, then blinks up at the man in surprise.

“Oh, um. Sorry. And thanks,” he mutters, pushing his glasses back into place with his free arm self-consciously.

The bounty hunter immediately drops his arm as if burned. “Be _quiet_ ,” he hisses. “I heard something.”

The warrior pauses and listens for a moment, tilting his helmet to one side, then shakes his head. “Nevermind. Thought I heard a squadron. If I did, they’re far. But still - you need to be careful. Keep your focus, and _do not_ run into me again. You could ruin my aim at a critical moment.”

“Sorry! Sorry,” Luma whispers back, horrified to feel himself blushing faintly at the man’s reprimand. “I just. I realized - I forgot about the security cams. My boss…”

_(What an utterly insufficient word for what Gideon is to me. Though, what could I call him? The man who spared my life as a child, who saw my potential? The man who practically raised and protected me for most of my life? The man who trusts me more than anyone else?  
_

_Or, rather: The man who burned my homeworld to the ground. Who turned me into a monster. Who scares me more than anyone in the galaxy. Who would strap me to the very torture devices he made me create in an instant if he ever catches me trying to leave him_ _._

 _He’s all those things,_ Luma realizes. _That’s the worst part. He’s all those things to me.)_

“It’s just that... Well. It’s not going to be good, when he realizes what I did,” he finishes lamely. ( _That’s the understatement of the century.)_ He swallows down a sudden lump in his throat.

The Mandalorian pauses at this and looks back at him. “Having any regrets?” the bounty hunter asks, his tone carefully neutral.

Luma glances down at the sleeping child in his arms and thinks about what he would’ve been forced to do to him if they’d remained at the base. If they’d gone back to Luma’s lab, cold tables and wires and needles all laid out in preparation for the child’s arrival. He shudders and clutches the child a bit closer to his chest.

“No,” he says firmly. “But if I’m captured, well. Death would be a kindness compared to what he’ll do to me.”

The other man is quiet for a moment. “That’s not going to happen,” he finally says, flatly. “We’re all getting out of here.”

Luma wants to be comforted by the Mandalorian’s confidence, but he can’t help but feel, deep down, that he’s running on borrowed time. 

He just shrugs helplessly. “Well. I certainly hope so.”

“Let’s go,” the Mandalorian orders. “We need to keep moving.”

 _There will be time for ruminating later._ _Just focus for now so he doesn’t think you’re even more of an idiot than he already does, and do what you can to survive. You and the kid._

He shakes his head to clear it and nods. “Let’s go.”

They are making their way deeper into the base when, just before rounding the last corner before the tunnels, the Mandalorian holds up his hand again. Luma freezes. He can hear it this time, too - a group of troopers around the corner and out of sight, likely at the far end of the next hall, murmuring quietly to each other.

 _Shit! They’re guarding the entrance._ _Does the Admiral already know I defected? Does Gideon already know?_

The Mandalorian touches the side of his right vambrace briefly and turns his visor in the direction of the troopers. “There are only six,” he says. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

Despite his internal panic over Gideon, Luma finds he can’t shut off the part of his brain that lives and breathes invention.

 _His HUD must have built-in thermal vision sensitive enough to see through concrete walls._ _That’s impressive. If we get out of this alive I’ll have to ask if I can take a closer look at it._

“Wait here with the kid,” the bounty hunter whispers, snapping him out of his reverie. “That many Imps means there will be a lot of ricochet.”

Luma nods determinedly. “I’ll keep him safe.”

“You’d better.” 

_Message received_. He nods, looking back down at the child, who is resting his sleeping head peacefully against his chest.

 _As if I need to be threatened to protect him_. 

And with that, the Mandalorian whips around the corner and begins shooting toward the end of the hall. He hears the troopers shout in alarm, sees a few blasts bounce uselessly off the beskar chestplate before the man begins stalking forward, out of his view.

He cringes at the sounds of screams, punches, blaster shots, the sickening crunch of a bone snapping. He covers the child’s ears, just in case.

Perhaps a minute later comes silence, followed by the Mandalorian’s calm, modulated voice: “Okay, come on out. It’s safe.”

Luma steps into the hall and gulps at the sight of pooling blood and trooper bodies scattered across the floor. The Mandalorian stands casually in the middle of the prone figures, unscathed. 

_(...Wow.)_

As Luma approaches, the bounty hunter gestures to the massive, steel-enforced door on his left and leans forward to inspect the code cylinder pad. “Is this the entrance you were talking about?”

It’s then that Luma sees it: one of the troopers just ahead of him, bleeding out on the ground but still conscious, has his blaster in hand. He takes shaky aim at the unaware Mandalorian’s exposed side, one of the few areas on the man not covered in impenetrable beskar. 

_Oh, fuck-!_

_“Look out!”_

Luma’s body acts before he can think. He’s suddenly standing over the trooper, the child still in his arms, and stomps down as hard as he can on the man’s hand. The trooper screams in pain and lets go of the blaster to clutch at his newly broken fingers.

Luma feels himself tuck the child under one arm, bend down to pick up the dropped blaster with the other, and without a second thought shoots the trooper through the head.

Specks of blood splatter his glasses. He slowly looks down at the blaster in his hand and feels a distant sense of surprise.

_Did I… Did I really just do that?_

A little coo brings him back to the present. He looks down at the Asset, who is opening his eyes sleepily, and notices (much to his horror) that some of the trooper’s blood flecked across the child’s face as well.

“Oh,” he says regretfully. “Oh no, I’m sorry. Um. Here, let me.” He drops the blaster carelessly to the ground with a clatter and shakily begins wiping the blood off the tiny green face with the sleeve of his lab coat. The child blinks groggily at him, then his eyes seem to light up in recognition.

“There we go - all clean,” he says softly.

It’s then that he notices the Mandalorian has been silent for far too long. He turns to see the man staring at him, frozen. 

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” _Please don’t be hurt. We need you._

Instead of responding, the Mandalorian slowly raises his blaster and takes steady aim between Luma’s eyes. 

His breath catches in his chest.

“You’re not just some lab rat,” the Mandalorian growls. “ _Who are you?_ ”

_...Oh, fuck._

Luma trembles, all bravery from moments before gone as he stares down the barrel for what feels like the umpteenth time today _._ “I’m guessing by ‘who are you’ you don’t really mean ‘what’s your name’? It’s Dr. Pershing, by the way, in case you forgot. You can call me Luma, though if you want,” he babbles, wishing desperately that he had the ability for once to _shut his mouth._

The Mandalorian’s grip on the handle of his blaster tightens. “You said you couldn’t fight, yet I just watched you break a man’s fingers and shoot him through the skull with no hesitation.”

_Ah. Not so dim after all._

“But - I can’t fight! I mean, look at me,” he says, gesturing down to his scrawny form. “I’m not exactly soldier material. It’s not like the Empire trained me or anything - they only wanted me for my mind.”

“Put the kid down. Now,” the Mandalorian growls.

Luma hesitates, hoping beyond hope the man will change his mind.

 _"Now_ , Dr. Pershing. I’m not gonna ask a second time.”

And just like that, his hope fades. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

He gives the kid one final, light squeeze, then carefully lowers him to the ground. The child looks up at him in confusion and raises his arms in request, and Luma’s heart breaks just a little bit.

Entirely unprepared for how painful such a simple thing would be, turns his attention from the child back to the man holding him at gunpoint and raises his trembling hands in surrender. 

“That wasn’t your first kill,” the Mandalorian says coldly. It’s not a question.

He winces. He knew the man might eventually figure out what kind of person he is, the things he’s done for the Empire, but he didn’t think it would be so _soon_.

“No,” he admits finally, softly. “It wasn’t.”

“How many?”

Luma is taken aback by the question. “W-what?”

“How many have you killed for the Empire?”

_He knows. He knows what I am and he’s going to kill me right here and I’ll completely deserve it -_

“I’m gonna ask you one last time, Dr. Pershing. How many? What do you do for the Empire?” The Mandalorian steps forward, blaster steady.

Luma stares at the warrior, eyes wide and breaths coming panicked and shallow. 

_If he kills me,_ _I can at least die knowing the kid is safe. That I did one good thing in my pathetic life._ _Mother would have been proud of that, at least._

He closes his eyes, takes one last deep breath, and pushes past the hysteria into something resembling clarity, acceptance.

_Fuck it. He wants to know who I am? Fine._

And so, with nothing further to lose, Luma allows himself _(just this once)_ to break.

“What do you want to hear? That I’ve tortured people, I’ve killed them under orders? Fine, I have. So many that I lost count years ago. Do you want to hear how I’ve designed ships that burn cities to the ground? That weapons I’ve created have killed thousands? Maybe tens of thousands? Yes. I did, and I have.”

He feels tears prick at the corners of his eyes but blinks them back furiously, thankful his glasses allow him to maintain some sense privacy. The Mandalorian remains silent, watching him.

“But I didn’t _want_ to,” he snaps. “I didn’t want to! I never did! I don’t care about the Empire, I just wanted to survive! I was just a _kid,_ a slave, a nothing when he took me in, but then he made me, raised me, and then he went and - he turned me into a fucking monster, okay? I’m a monster because of him, I’ve been one for the last twenty-five years. And then you came along, and I had a _chance._ I made my own decision for once in my life, and it was to get away from him!”

He distantly hears the child babbling anxiously at his feet, feels the kid tugging the hem of his lab coat. “And to save the kid,” he adds gently. He chokes out a bitter laugh. “Thousands of lives have been lost because of me in some way or another, and all it took was one kid to push me over the edge.” 

Suddenly, he feels very, very tired.

“Look, I just… I don’t want to be around him anymore. I can’t. I can’t stay. So either kill me or take me with you, but I’m not going back. I’ll still unlock the door for you, if you want, and tell you where to go. But you need to promise me - if you… If you leave me behind, you need to kill me. Please. Quick and painless would be preferable, but. Dealer’s choice, I guess.”

The Mandalorian stares at him for another beat. Then, to his utmost shock and confusion, the man slowly lowers his blaster. “No,” comes the modulated voice, little more than a grunt.

Luma gapes at the man. “...What?”

“I’m not gonna kill you.”

“What?” he repeats, uncomprehending. “But - why?”

The Mandalorian shrugs stiffly, awkwardly. “You kept the kid alive, and you just saved me. We owe you. Besides, I’m a Mandalorian. We don’t leave people behind.”

It’s suddenly difficult to breathe. 

“I’m not lying,” he blurts out, though he has no idea why. “I’ve tortured people. Killed them under orders.”

“Did you want to?”

“No!”

“Would they have killed you if they didn’t?”

He thinks of Gideon’s steely glare and shudders. “Yes.”

“Then that’s good enough for me.”

“But, no - I already told you. I’ll open the door. I’ll tell you where you need to go in the tunnels. You don’t need me alive anymore once I do that,” he says helplessly.

Part of him wonders what the hell he’s doing, arguing with a man who’s decided not to kill him. And yet -

_This doesn’t make any sense. What does he want?_

The Mandalorian gestures toward the locked door. “Look, we don’t have time for this. We need to leave. Now.”

The bounty hunter looks down at the kid, who’s given up on getting Luma to pick him up and is now trying to scale his leg, and shakes his head. “Go ahead and carry the kid again before he throws a fit, then open the door, and follow me. I’ll lead with my rifle, you direct me.”

 _Who the hell is this guy?_ For the first time in a long time, Luma, for all his intellect, he can’t seem to piece together the logic behind Mandalorian’s motivations. 

After a long beat (and not knowing what else to do but obey the man’s orders), Luma picks up the child and uses his code cylinder to open the tunnels. Despite the Mandalorian’s word, he’s still vaguely surprised when he doesn’t get a blast to the back of the head once the doors are unlocked.

“Let’s go,” the Mandalorian grunts, and begins descending the loading ramp into the dark, earthy tunnel below.

Luma quickly follows behind with the kid, but can’t help one final protest. “Allowing me to live doesn’t make sense, Mandalorian! This isn’t logical!” he calls out at the man’s descending form.

The bounty hunter has the audacity to _snort_ at him.

“This is the Way,” the Mandalorian says. “Now move.”

*

Ten minutes later, they emerge into the glittering Nevarro night. Luma pants with the effort of keeping up with the relentless pace the Mandalorian set through the tunnels.

 _I really need to exercise more,_ he thinks bitterly as he adjusts his grip on the child, who blinks up at him contentedly. _Lucky bastard, getting carried. He’s lucky he’s so cute._

“There it is,” the Mandalorian says, pointing in the distance ( _and not sounding even a bit winded_ ).

The Razor Crest, true to the Mandalorian’s word, is just barely visible, a perched on a distant sand dune like the most beautiful hunk of scrap metal he’s ever seen.

“It looks like I was right,” he observes, eyeing the empty desert around them. “Karga doesn’t know about the tunnels, or else they’d have been here waiting for us. The Guild must be waiting to ambush you outside the base.” 

The Mandalorian grunts in agreement. “We should still hurry, though. It wouldn’t have taken me this long to take the base - once they realize something is wrong they’ll start looking for my ship instead.”

They walk quickly and quietly through the desert. The only sounds are the gritty padding of their feet on the sand, Luma’s labored breathing, and the kid’s occasional soft noises. Luma looks up at the stars, closes his eyes for a brief moment, and smiles. Drinks it in.

_This is really happening. I left him. I left the Empire. Even if Gideon captures me tomorrow... Fuck it. It was worth it._

When he opens his eyes, he sees the Mandalorian looking at him. He flushes slightly at being caught once more lost in his own thoughts. “Uh, sorry, I just. Um. It’s been a while since I’ve been outside. I’ve been stuck in a lab on a base or a ship for most of the last… Hell. Twenty-five years, I guess. Since the Empire took me in. Wanted to bask in it for a moment. Sorry.”

The Mandalorian shakes his head. “You don’t have to apologize.” There’s an odd tone in his voice Luma can’t quite place. _Almost... soft?_

He stares, still baffled as to why the Mandalorian is being so kind to him _(is that what he’s doing?)_ , but doesn’t dare question it anymore than he already has for fear of risking the man’s wrath.

They walk in silence a bit longer before the warrior says suddenly, “The man you were talking about before. Your boss.”

Luma winces.

“What does he want with the kid?”

_Ah. He wants information. Perhaps that’s why he’s kept me alive this long? Maybe he’s been buttering me up so I’ll spill Imperial secrets before he kills me?_

_Then again, he’s considered killing me at least three times since we’ve met, and he’s chosen not to every time. Perhaps he’s being genuine in his offer of protection?_

“Well,” he begins slowly, cautiously, “what do you know about the Jedi?”

The Mandalorian stiffens. “An enemy race of sorcerers. My people were at war with them for countless generations.”

Luma eyes him warily. He knows the history between Mandalorians and Jedi is fraught, but that doesn’t mean the man would hurt the child if he finds out he’s Force-sensitive, right?

“‘Were’ being the key word,” Luma quickly corrects him. “Some Jedi even allied with Mandalorians during the Occupation of Mandalore in 19 BBY, according to the holocron files the Empire was able to salvage from the Jedi Temple after the Purge. They tried to help the Mandalorians overthrow the Sith insurgent Darth Maul.”

“Sith?”  
  
“Oh, um. _Darjetii_ in Mando’a. Like a Jedi, but dark, evil. And - surprise, surprise - they usually ally with the Empire,” he drolls.

The Mandalorian gives another amused snort so quiet Luma almost misses it. He blinks in surprise, an odd flutter in his chest. _(I can’t remember the last time I intentionally made someone laugh.)_

“Okay,” the bounty hunter says. “But what do the Jedi have to do with the kid?”

“Well, you said Jedi is a race. They actually aren’t. Like Mandalorians, Jedi is a creed - a religion. But to join the Jedi Order, you have to have certain… abilities.”

There’s an almost imperceptible hitch in the Mandalorian’s gait at this.

“Abilities?” he repeats slowly.

Luma nods. “Yes. All Jedi must have higher concentrations of something in their cells called midi-chlorians, which allows them to sense something called the Force. Heard of it?”

The Mandalorian hesitates. “I’m not sure. Doesn’t the New Republic use it as a greeting? ‘May the Force be with you’? Is that the same ‘Force’ you’re talking about?”

Now _that_ was interesting - most people in the Galaxy have at least heard of Jedi and their abilities using the Force, even if they didn’t believe they were anything more than myths.

 _He must be from a particularly insular tribe of Mandalorians to know this little about the galaxy_. _Perhaps his tribe follows the Old Ways. It would also explain his gaps in knowledge about the Jedi and the Sith..._

“Yes,” he confirms. “The Force is an energy field that connects all living things in the galaxy. We don’t understand that much about it yet. We just know that it’s invisible to the naked eye, but some people are sensitive to it if they have high-levels of midi-chlorians in their cells. The Jedi weren’t really sorcerers who used magic - they were Force-sensitive people who figured out that through years of training they could control the Force, which gave them special abilities. ‘May the Force be with you’ is an old Jedi adage, which is why the New Republic adopted it. They want to remind people of when they had an entire militia of Jedi at their command - a force-sensitive army.” 

The Mandalorian’s helmet tilts downward to glance at the child, then up again to Luma. “So the kid. He’s…?”

“He’s definitely Force-sensitive, though I haven’t seen any sign that he’s aware of his abilities. I managed to get a read of his M-count before you showed up, and it’s one of the highest ever recorded, if the Temple holocrons are to be believed. If he learns how to control his abilities one day, he’ll grow up to be incredibly powerful,” Luma says. He looks down at the child, who is chewing idly on a wad of his lab coat and adds with a wry smile, “Some day far in the future, I imagine.”

“Actually, I think he might already have some control,” the Mandalorian says slowly. 

Luma blinks. “Wait - what?”

“On Arvala-7, when I was bringing him back to you and your boss. There was a mudhorn - I lost my rifle and blaster. All I had left was my knife, and it was charging at me, full-force. If he hadn’t…” the bounty hunter trails off, but the implication is clear.

Luma’s jaw drops. “Are you telling me the kid somehow stopped an entire _mudhorn_?”

The Mandalorian shrugs. “Yeah, he just… lifted his hand, and it floated in the air for maybe ten, fifteen seconds. Just enough time for me to kill it.”

Luma’s mind is whirling. According to his extensive research, what the other man is describing should only be capable of a Jedi several years into training - possibly even decades. 

“That’s - that’s _incredible_. Jedi would normally spend the first year or two of training just passing pebbles back and forth with their minds. To be able to lift an entire mudhorn, and for that long…”

They both stare down at the child in wonder, who looks solemnly back at them as he attempts to shove his entire fist into his mouth.

“So... he’s a Jedi?” the Mandalorian asks hesitantly, his tone equal parts awe and skepticism.

“Well, no, he’s just a baby, he hasn’t sworn a creed. He just has powers that would have, in the time of the Jedi, caused them to take him from his family and train him to become one,” Luma says. Then, realizes something. “Actually, since he’s at least fifty, it’s very possible he was already at a Jedi Temple before he was captured and somehow survived the Jedi Purge. He would have been around twenty, so maybe he’s already had some training. That might explain how he’s so powerful. He’s a child, yes, but he’s potentially already had two decades of training.”

“Did you say the Jedi took Force-sensitive children from their families?” The Mandalorian’s voice is flat, icy. 

Luma tries not to shiver. Even when the man’s anger isn’t directed at him, he’s absolutely _terrifying_. “According to their records, yes. Although if the Jedi were to be believed, without proper training a force-sensitive child can end up hurting themselves or others or turning to the Dark Side, becoming Sith. It’s hard to tell the difference between fact and propaganda, though, honestly. Again, not much different from the Empire.”

The Mandalorian shakes his head in disgust. “Empire. The Old Republic. The Jedi. The Sith. It doesn’t matter who’s in power. It’s always the innocent who suffer.”

Luma sighs. _He’s not wrong._ “Unfortunately, for most of the Galaxy, that’s the real ‘Way,’” he acknowledges bitterly.

“So what exactly does your boss want to do with the kid? Why does it matter that he’s Force-sensitive?”

“Well, among lots of other things, I’m a gene engineer, which means I make genetically modified strandcast soldiers. Typically that meant higher ups wanted me to make soldier clones that were faster, stronger, smarter, more loyal than previous iterations. But for this most recent project, they wanted something that was actually proving to be quite a challenge for once - they wanted my team and I to create Force-sensitive strandcast soldiers.”

Though he can’t see the warrior’s face, he can sense by the way the man’s body suddenly goes rigid how horrified he is at the thought.

“A scary thought, yes, but I wouldn’t worry about it anymore, honestly,” Luma admits. “I am - or, I _was_ \- the most capable science officer the Empire had left after the Death Star, which is why they had me leading the project. Without a Force-sensitive subject, though, the project will be at a standstill. And with both me _and_ the kid gone, my research team won’t know a midi-chlorian from a mitochondria,” he says, not without a hint of pride. 

The Mandalorian is quiet, seemingly processing his words. After a long moment, he sighs heavily. “Well, we can’t have that. Guess that means I’d better make sure you two stay out of the Empire’s hands, then.”

There’s a sudden, hot rush of guilt when he realizes the Mandalorian is, in fact, entirely serious - for stars only know what reason, the man seems determined to protect him along with the child. A goal that, Luma knows, is going to get the man killed - the first person to be even remotely kind to him with seemingly no ulterior motive in _years._

“Look,” he says urgently. “You should know what you’re getting into, here. The Empire is never going to stop looking for him. Ever.” _(And Gideon will never stop looking for me.)_ “It may be weakened, but its remnants are still a force to be reckoned with. It’s going to be incredibly difficult to hold them off forever, maybe impossible. I know you’re a powerful warrior and all that, but, honestly - you very well might die. In fact, as much as I wish otherwise for mine and the child’s sakes, I’d say the odds are with it.”

_(Please, please believe me. This won’t end well for you.)  
_

“That isn’t going to happen.”

”But -”

“ _That isn’t going to happen_ ,” the Mandalorian repeats, his voice so forceful it sends a chill down Luma’s spine. “The child is going to live and so are you. I don’t know why you’re so determined to die, Dr. Pershing, but the sooner you get that through your head the better.”  
  
Luma, for the first time in a very long time, is absolutely speechless.

_I sincerely hope you’re right, Mandalorian._

It’s at that moment they finally reach the Razor Crest, resting quietly atop a small dune. It’s outdated and practically falling apart from the carbon scoring and rust, Luma notes _(_ _he’ll have to do something about that later)_ , but at the moment it’s the most beautiful ship he’s ever seen.

“Let’s get strapped in. The sooner we’re off this planet, the better,” the bounty hunter mutters. He presses a discrete button on his vambrace and the ship’s rear gangway lowers creakily to their feet. 

“Sounds good to me,” Luma replies as they ascend into the dingy cargo hold. _The faster we’re off-planet, the better. Hopefully once we’re far enough away, the Mandalorian will -_

A sudden realization hits him. “Hey, what’s your name, anyway? It feels strange to keep calling you ‘the Mandalorian’ in my head. What should I call you?”

The Mandalorian pauses in surprise and turns to face him. He seems as if he’s about to respond when a voice rings out from behind them into the cargo hold. “I see you’ve picked up another stray, Mando.”

Both men whirl around to see Greef Karga at the entrance of the ship, a blaster fixed on Luma’s chest - _on the_ _child_.

Luma’s breath catches. He clutches the child closer, tightens his arms around him. The Mandalorian stands stock-still, body coiled as if ready to pounce. 

“Dr. Pershing,” Karga says, eyeing him in surprise. “This is the last place I expected to see you again. Betraying the Admiral, are we? Not very wise for a doctor.”

“Just trying to do the right thing for once. You should try it,” Luma shoots back, aiming for something close to levity. Had he not been wearing his glasses, his panicked eyes would have betrayed him, unable to move from their locked position on the blaster.

Karga huffs irritably. “I do right by my _clients,_ Dr. Pershing. By following the Code I swore myself to,” he snaps. “Look, gentlemen, I didn’t want it to come to this, but you broke the Code, Mando!”

And then, quite suddenly, all hell breaks loose.

The Mandalorian shoots his grappling hook into a pressurized pipe just above Luma’s head which immediately starts spewing fumes and steam throughout the ship, and his vision is lost in clouds. Instinctively, Luma curls his body to the right, in a single move shielding the child from any stray blasts and making his body as small a target as he possibly can.

He hears two blaster shots ring out in the ship, and then, for a reason he can’t quite fathom, one of his legs gives out from under him. He manages to twist his torso just in time, landing hard on his back instead of atop the child, who gives out a frightened squeak.

Luma, lying prone on the floor of the ship, groans and shakes his head, trying to clear his vision that’s suddenly gone strangely blurry though the steam seems to have dissipated. He hears the sound of the cargo bay door hissing shut, feels the Mandalorian’s presence kneeling next to him.

“He’s taken care of,” the Mandalorian says curtly. “You two okay?”

He and the warrior look down at the child clutching at Luma’s arm, looking rattled but physically unharmed. Both men let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Come on, let’s get to the cockpit,” The Mandalorian says, offering him a gloved hand. “The rest of the guild probably isn’t far behind.”

Luma takes the man’s hand, tries to stand, and realizes something is very, very wrong when his leg gives out. His throat lets out a cry of pain, and he falls back to the unforgiving - suddenly oddly slippery - floor of the ship.

The Mandalorian jerks back, startled. “Hey, what’s...?”

Both men’s eyes trail down Luma’s body and stop in horror at the glistening wet hole in his side, right at the crux of his left hip. 

_Is that… Was I…?_

Suddenly, thinking is quite difficult.

The Mandalorian swears, detaches his cape, and presses a fistful of the material harshly into the wound. Luma distantly registers how quickly the dark fabric grows even darker, almost a sinister black.

That’s when the pain hits. He gasps, arches his back, and tries to pull away from the horrible pressure the Mandalorian is placing on his hip.

The pressure only increases in response. “Stop squirming!” the warrior snaps. “I need to stop the bleeding so I can get us off-planet! We’re not safe here.”

_Oh. That’s right. The kid. The Mandalorian._

Somehow, in the last few hours he has acquired not one, but _two_ people besides himself whose safety matters to him, and the only thing he fully comprehends at the moment is that they are _both in danger._

He screws his eyes shut, allows himself to feel the pain for another moment ( _and this is nothing compared to what my machine does, fuck I deserve this_ ), then forces them open, using every bit of will power he has to to look up at the man and say, _“Go.”_

The Mandalorian shakes his head, continues pressing down on his wound wordlessly.

Drawing on a reserve of strength he didn't know he had left, he reaches up with one hand, grabs the back of the Mandalorian’s helmet, and pulls the man down to his level. He glares into the visor where he imagines the other man’s eyes staring back, wide in shock. “You listen to me, Mandalorian. The kid isn’t safe here. _We_ aren’t safe here. You need to get into that cockpit and get us off this planet and into hyperspace right now, or _none_ of us will make it.”

When the Mandalorian answers, his voice is shaky, panicked for the first time since they’ve met. “But - I think you have a nicked artery. If I move my hands…”

He hears his mother’s voice, Ti’la’s voice, telling him to _live_ , _live, live,_ but he shakes them off.

 _(There are things that are more important now_. _And that’s okay, it’s okay.)_

He can’t help but smile dazedly at the man. “Hey, it’s alright. I didn’t want to go like this - or at all, really, but. If I _have_ to, well. It's nice to go out on a good note, you know? Escaping the Empire, helping you save the kid. Seems… seems like a pretty good note t’me.” His words are beginning to slur.

The child, perched at Luma’s side, makes a small, distressed noise. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he mutters. “Glad I got t’meet you...” The world starts to go blurry around the edges.

“Din,” the Mandalorian chokes out.

“Huh?” Luma blinks hazily up at him.

“My name. You asked me my name,” he says, his voice rough. “It’s Din Djarin.”

_Oh._

He squeezes the warrior’s - _Din’s_ \- arm. “It’s... nice meet you, Din. Now would you - ” he breaks off for a moment to stifle a gasp of pain - “mind getting us the hell out of here?”

The Mandalorian hesitates for only another brief moment, then appears to reach his resolve as he growls in frustration. “ _Fine_ ,” he grits out. “Press here _as hard as you can._ I’ll come back the second we’re in hyperspace. Just hold on until then. Three minutes, tops. _Hold. On._ ”

Luma nods faintly, despite knowing he doesn’t have enough strength left for the pressure required to stop the bleeding for even a minute, let alone three.

“Go. I’ll be fine,” he lies, placing his fingers under the Mandalorian’s to press down into his wound.

Luma feels rather than hears the Mandalorian - no, _Din_ \- bolt toward the cockpit and coax the ship into the air, feels the little hands of the child batting worriedly at this chest, feels pain like he’s never felt radiating from his hip, feels regret for so, so many things, and yet - 

_Somehow, the only thing I don’t regret is meeting these two_.

 _Survive,_ his mother had always told him, but Luma’s last thought before he drifts into blackness is that maybe, just maybe, he’s found something worth dying for.


	4. The Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luma learns that his escape from the Empire comes at a great cost.  
> A Mandalorian, a doctor, and a child walk into a bar.  
> A new path is taken with a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, folks! Thanks again to all the wonderful people who left reviews and kudos on my last chapter. I'm stressed as hell at work currently (teaching in-person during a pandemic is NOT fun, people), and writing this fic and getting the little email notifications of reviews and whatnot have really been brightening my days.
> 
> Also, if you're so inclined, feel free to follow me on my tumblr, where I will give occasional updates and answer questions about this fic if you have them. My username is [audustaire](http://Www.Audustaire.tumblr.com) there, too.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!

Here’s the thing: Luma, despite the universe’s most valiant efforts, _actually_ wakes up.

He comes to consciousness slowly. His fingers twitch at his sides and he feels a soft, heavy blanket draped over him. He hears a distant thrumming, feels a vibration in the air around him and recognizes his surroundings as a moving ship.

His first thought is a single, terrified: _Gideon?_

He opens his eyes, blinks a stark metal ceiling into focus, and takes in his surroundings. He’s in a barebones capsule bunk on a small transport ship, likely pre-Empire judging from the design and size of the room. His lab coat is gone, much to his alarm, leaving him in just his thin undershirt, and his glasses are set neatly on an inset shelf on the wall next to his head.

So it’s not his bunk on Gideon’s cruiser. Not his room in his private lab on Nevarro. Not the guest quarters in Admiral Grisham’s base.

_Where the hell am I?_

It’s then that he notices the small, huddled figure of the child sleeping next to him on the mattress, and everything comes back in a rush.

He screws his eyes shut against the tide of emotions that threaten to overwhelm him: the sheer joy of finally being free of the Empire, of Gideon, of never having to torture another soul again; the guilt of realizing that at this point, Gideon likely knows what Luma’s done, that he’s abandoned him; the terror of knowing that the Moff is likely already on the hunt for him.

And, finally, the confusion as to why he’s feeling anything at all.

_I should be dead. Why am I not dead?_

He opens his eyes again and looks at the sleeping child at his side, his tiny chest rising and falling with steady breaths. And, all at once, his fears and doubts from moments before quiet, his throat catches, and he sends a fervent thanks out into the universe that the kid is _here_ and _safe,_ he’s done _one good thing,_ and at least there’s that.

“You’re awake,” comes the modulated voice.

Luma startles and tries to subtly swipe at his eyes. He eases himself up onto his elbows, hoping to settle into a more dignified position, and glances at the man standing at the entrance of the bunk. He notes with some surprise that the Mandalorian - _Din,_ he reminds himself - is still wearing his full armor, including his helmet.

“Din,” he greets softly. The man stiffens in surprise, as if he’d entirely forgotten he’d confessed his name to him, and Luma frowns worriedly. “Sorry, was that a spur of the moment, ‘I thought you were going to die so I might as well tell you my name, but now that you somehow managed to survive don’t you dare use it’ kind of thing?”

Din lets out an amused huff and relaxes a fraction. “No. I gave you my name, so use it if you want. I just haven’t heard anyone say it in a long time.”

Luma’s eyebrows raise in surprise. _His tribe doesn’t use names? Definitely not from a typical Mandalorian sect. Or maybe he’s been separated from them for a while?_

“How do you feel? Have you tried moving your leg yet?”

Luma’s brow scrunches in confusion as he recalls the events leading up to him regaining consciousness. “Wait - how I’m the hell am I alive right now? With the amount of blood I was losing I should be dead.”

“All I know is that it was the kid,” the Mandalorian says. He leans forward, reaching into the capsule to rest a gloved hand on the sleeping child’s back. “After I got us into hyperspace, I ran back to you and the kid was… I’m not sure. He had his eyes closed, his hands were on your leg, there was a light, and the bleeding, just… stopped.”

“That’s... that’s called Force-healing,” Luma murmurs faintly, looking down at the child in awe. “It’s arguably even more impressive than lifting the mudhorn. Fully-trained Jedi Knights often struggled to heal even minor bone breaks with their powers. The fact that he healed an injury that severe is almost unheard of, especially for a child.”

“Well,” Din begins, hesitant in a way that makes his stomach drop. “‘Healed’ might be a strong word. He was able to stop the bleeding, but... Take a look for yourself.”

With great trepidation, Luma lifts the blanket to inspect his leg and lets out a quiet gasp. He’s only wearing his shorts, and a distant part of his brain registers that he should be mortified that the Mandalorian apparently took off his pants while he was unconscious. But, more pressingly, he sees what can only be described as a _crater_ of missing flesh on the outer side of his right thigh. The wound though, oddly enough, looks as if it’s years old rather than hours, the skin surrounding it having healed into a mottled surface smothered in ugly, twisting scar tissue.

“Din,” he murmurs, faintly.

“I know. Try moving your leg,” the warrior says quietly.

Luma tries wiggling his toes and nods in satisfaction when he does so without trouble. When he tries to bend his knee, he winces in pain, but it’s not unbearable.

“Good,” the Mandalorian praises, and offers out his gloved hands. “Now let’s see if you can stand.” 

Flushing slightly, he takes ahold of the offered hands and, with some difficulty, hoists himself to the end of the bunk. Once he reaches the edge, he swings his legs down to rest his gaze feet on the ship’s cold floor. He steels himself, adjusts his grip on the other man’s hands, and pulls himself to his feet. A dull ache radiates from his thigh as he puts some weight on his leg, but it’s something he knows he can learn to tolerate. 

“Good,” Din repeats, gently extricating his hands from Luma’s grasp and taking a few steps backwards. “Can you try walking to me?”

Luma, feeling bizarrely like a toddler rather than an esteemed thirty-five year old doctor, takes a ginger step forward with his injured leg first.

_Painful, but I can get used to it._

It’s the second step, requiring him to put his weight on his wounded right leg while he steps forward with the left, that causes a bolt of agony to ricochet from his thigh throughout the rest of his body. He lets out a yelp as his leg gives out, and the bounty hunter rushes forward to catch him.

“Easy,” Din murmurs, easing him back to sit at the edge of the bunk.

He pants and screws his eyes shut, trying to shut out the throbbing waves of pain emanating from the crater of missing muscle on his thigh. After a few long, agonizing moments, it passes enough for him to open his eyes and look up at the armored man hovering over him.

“Din,” he chokes out.

The moment the pain finally subsides, a wave of guilt floods through him to take its place when begins to process the reality of his situation. _I’m even more helpless than before. I couldn’t fight - now, I can’t even walk properly, let alone run. Din already has the kid to protect. I’m only going to slow him down, maybe_ (probably) _get one of them hurt._

Din considers him for a moment, helmet tilted down toward Luma’s trembling form. “Wait here,” he finally says, and pads over to a pair of large metal doors nestled between the bunk and the cargo hold. He opens them, revealing, from what he can make out, an impressively diverse arsenal of various rifles, blasters, and blades. The warrior reaches in and takes out - to Luma’s complete bafflement - a Tusken Raider gaderffii stick. He looks down at it, back at Luma, then hands it over.

He squints up at the man in confusion, but takes the offered weapon in his hands. He squeezes experimentally, feels the stick’s weight and admires its craftsmanship. It’s long, perhaps half of his own height, and oddly beautiful - its twisted wood grain has been lacquered over and worn into a smooth, polished sheen. One end of the staff ends in a sharply curved handle, the other in a lethal metal tip. 

“Um. Thanks...?” Luma ventures. _Is this a Mandalorian culture thing I’ve somehow missed?_

“This is a gaderffii stick. Low-tech but effective, versatile, and lethal as hell in well-trained hands. But what most people don’t know is that Tusken Raiders don’t just use them as weapons. They’re also tools to assist in navigating sand dunes. Helps them keep their balance in shifting terrain. So, I’m thinking it might help you keep the weight off your injured leg. You’ll still have a limp, probably a bad one, but at least you could get around without needing a hoverchair,” Din says.

Luma sighs. “It’s a nice thought, but… Even if I can walk with a stick, I’ll never be able to run, which I guarantee we’re going to have to do at some point to evade the Empire. I’m just going to slow you down, put you and the kid in danger. You should just leave - ” 

“Finish that sentence and I’ll give you a wound to match on your other leg,” the Mandalorian interrupts, his voice a low growl. “I’m not having this conversation with you again.”

Luma flinches and shrinks in on himself, wishing he’d thought to put his glasses back on when he first regained consciousness. “I’m sorry,” he pleads, though he doesn’t understand the reason behind the other man’s sudden rage, or why he’s supposed to be sorry. “I just… The last thing I want is to put you or the kid in danger.”

_I was trying to offer him a free pass to kill me or drop me off wherever he pleases, guilt free. Why is he angry? Is he mad I was dumb enough to get shot at all?_

Din sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

Luma frowns up at him, brow furrowed in confusion _. Why is he apologizing?_

“Look,” the bounty hunter continues, “if the Empire gets their hands on you, they’ll torture you, force you to make their Jedi clone soldiers, or possibly kill you, correct?”

“Or some combination of the three, yes,” Luma winces. 

“Well,” Din says slowly, though not unkindly, as if explaining something to a child, “I don’t want any of those things to happen, so no, I’m not going to drop you off on some backwater planet to fend for yourself or whatever you were going to suggest. You’re staying with me and the kid where I can protect you. I don’t care how illogical you want to tell me it is to keep you around. I’m doing it. Until you’re safe from the Empire, you’re with me. Understand?”

Luma doesn’t, but, unsure of what else to do, he gives the man a cautious nod.

“Good.” The Mandalorian backs up a couple paces and holds out his hands again. “Now try walking with the stick this time.”

Luma grasps the stick by its curved handle, plants its metal tip to the Razor Crest’s floor, and rises to a shaky stand. Thankfully, with his weight spread across three effective limbs rather than two, the moderate pain he felt from standing before is now at a much more manageable level.

He takes a tentative step forward with his left foot, shifting his weight to lean heavily on the cane rather than his injured limb. There’s some pain, certainly, but nothing compared to the white hot agony of his previous unassisted attempt. He looks at Din, nods, and closes the gap between them. His limp is heavy, as he knew it would be, but he can at least walk on his own without extreme discomfort.

“How does it feel?”

Luma shrugs. “I’ll get used to it.” _I suppose I’ll have to._ “I suspect long distances will be difficult, however. I hope you didn’t have any long hikes planned for wherever we’re going?”

“I charted a course to Sorgan,” Din says. “No star port, no industrial centers, no population density. A real backwater skughole. And it’s mostly grasslands so not much rough terrain, which means it's perfect for us. I figured we could lay low for a couple months there while the heat dies down. Unless you have a better idea?”

“No, that... actually sounds wonderful,” he realizes. _A couple months of the quiet life might do me some good._ He limps his way back to sit heavily at the end of the bunk, then looks up at the warrior. 

“Thank you, Din,” he says softly. “For everything. Sincerely. I wouldn’t have made it out of there without you.”

“We wouldn’t have made it out of there without you,” Din returns, shrugging. “You saved me and the kid. We’re square as far as I’m concerned.”

There’s a beat of silence filled only by the twin thrummings of the engines, then Mandalorian clears his throat and takes an abrupt step backwards. “Right. I’ll go recheck our flight path,” he grunts, and turns on his heel and climbs up the ladder and into the cockpit without another word.

Luma looks after him in bewilderment, then back down at his mangled leg, and takes a deep, focusing breath.

_I’ve made it this far. I can survive this, too._

*

The child finally wakes up the moment they land on Sorgan, perhaps sensing there’s a new adventure to be had.

“Hey there, little one,” Luma murmurs, picking up the child from the mattress as he yawns and scrubs at his face with a tiny fist. “Welcome back. Din tells me I have you to thank for my life.”

The child blinks back at him solemnly, and Luma smiles and strokes a hand gently along one of his ears.

Din hops down from the cockpit and into view. “Good, he’s awake. I landed right at the edge of town, so we shouldn’t have too far of a walk - Oh.” He stops, takes in Luma’s form sitting on the bunk with the child, still clad only in his undershirt and shorts. “Right. Uh. I’ll get you something to wear for now. They’ll be too big, but we can pick up some new clothes for you in town. We’ll have to get stuff for the kid anyway.”

Luma nods, relieved he won’t have to be half-naked in front of the man for much longer. ( _A man who,_ Luma reminds himself, _is still practically a stranger, no matter how much of a sudden liking you’ve taken to him)_. He’s distinctly aware of how small and weak his body appears, and his new scars, he’s sure, don’t help appearances. “That would be great. Thank you.”

Din rifles through a drawer next to the armory and returns with a thin, knit shirt and a pair of soft drawstring pants that Luma assumes the man wears to sleep in. 

“Thanks,” he repeats, eagerly pulling on the shirt and attempting to be subtle when he has to roll the sleeves up several times to regain use of his hands. With some difficulty, he pulls on the pants, flushing slightly in embarrassment when he sees how much extra fabric drapes around his ankles.

He reaches for his glasses on the shelf beside him, grabs the garderffii stick, and stands with some difficulty. He is both relieved and somewhat surprised when the enormous garments don’t immediately slide off his frame.

_Well, then._

“Ta-da!” he declares, voice dripping in sarcasm. “A perfect fit.”

Din snorts and cocks his helmet to one side, considering him. “Better than that ridiculous lab coat," the warrior shrugs.

He shoots the man a prickly scowl in response. “I'll have you know that was coat was for function, not fashion!”

“I’ll say."

Luma tries and fails to stop a smirk from overtaking his unamused frown. “Alright, sure, Mr. I-wear-the-same-suit-of-armor-every-day. You’re not exactly one to judge," he says, wildly gesturing at the man's armor.

The Mandalorian gives an amused snort, shakes his head, then reaches out to gently take the child from his arms. Luma can hear the smile in his voice as he murmurs in the child's ear, “You hear that, kid? We save his life and this is what we get, huh?” The child giggles at the warrior in response, kicking his legs in excitement. 

Luma watches them for a moment, feels a catch in his chest at the sight that he isn’t quite prepared to dissect.

Din turns back to him, suddenly all business. “It’s about a five minute walk into town. You sure you can handle it? I don’t mind going on my own. I could take the kid, too, if you need some rest.”

Luma shakes his head. “No, I want to try tagging along, if you don’t mind. I’m going to have to get used to getting around with this leg anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” Din says. “But don’t expect me to wait on you to keep up.”

*

Despite the Mandalorian’s words, they make their way into town at a snail’s pace. As soon as they climb down the side gangway, the warrior sets the child down so he can toddle down the dirt path on his own. Din leads, stopping every few paces to wait for his hobbling companions to catch up.

They eventually make their way into a bustling marketplace, full of villagers selling handmade wares from colorful grass huts. Several shoppers and storekeepers stop and stare at them as they walk past, clearly unused to visitors on their small planet.

They find a small table filled with neat piles of clothes and a shopkeeper who eyes them suspiciously. At Din’s insistence, Luma picks out a few shirts, sweaters, and trousers, aiming for inoffensive neutral tones. He is keenly aware that this is the first time in his entire life he’s actually choosing his own clothing, and he’s inexplicably afraid of messing up somehow.

After Din helps him pick a few items, he runs his hands over a particularly soft knitted sweater with reverence. _This is actually mine..._

Din hands the surly shopkeeper a few coins, tucks the new clothes into his pack, and waves away Luma’s stuttered thanks. “It’s nothing," the warrior mutters. "Come on. We still need stuff for the kid.”

A bit deeper into the marketplace, they see a stand offering various supplies and provisions for children. Luma looks down in terror at the sea of tiny clothes, toys, burp cloths, and dozens of other items that he hadn’t even realized existed, much less imagined that they might need.

He risks a glance at Din, who stares, similarly frozen, at the items before them.

 _He doesn't have any idea what he’s doing caring for a child, either._ _We’re both flying blind,_ Luma realizes, feeling oddly comforted by the thought. 

The shopkeeper, a small woman with kind eyes, sees their hesitancy and takes pity on them. “New parents?” she asks, a wry smile playing about her lips. 

_Does she think…?_

“Something like that,” Din offers, unphased. “We could use some advice on what we’ll need to care for this little one.”

With the shopkeeper’s guidance, they pick out a few extra sets of soft robes for the child, a small hammock to install above the already cramped bunk mattress, and several other odds and ends the woman suggests, from burp cloths and soft bath towels to tiny rubber utensils and cups with lids. 

Din pays the woman a significant handful of coins and Luma winces, wishing he had something - anything - to offer.

“Stop it with the face,” Din says as he finishes packing the child’s new things in his nearly bursting travel pack. “I already told you, it’s nothing. You and the kid need basic necessities to survive. You shouldn't feel guilty about that.”

“I can pay you back one day,” Luma says quickly. “Not to brag, but again, I’m a genius biochemical engineer and a polyglot. Surely I could find work here - ”

Din sighs heavily. “Look, I know that you’re a genius and you’re talented and you’re useful. I get it. But what I need you to do right now is take it easy. You were just injured - significantly and permanently. If you really want to pay me back, you can stop worrying about owing me anything, because you don’t. Now how's your leg?”

Luma blinks in surprise at the change of subject. “Um. Fine,” he lies, shifting his weight in an attempt to hide how heavily he’s leaning on his stick.

“Sure,” the Mandalorian mutters, and points to what appears to be a common house toward the center of the small town. “Let’s rest there a bit before we head back to the ship. I bet the kid’s hungry.”

Luma sighs in defeat and follows him. 

The common house is a whirlwind of activity. The trio push their way through bustling throngs of villagers, some of whom openly gawk at the strange newcomers, and make their way to one of the few open tables in the crowded space, thankfully equipped with a booster seat. Luma sits heavily in the closest seat and tries not to appear as winded as he is. The Mandalorian reaches down and places the child in the highchair between them.

They’re approached by a proprietor, a short woman with curly hair and a winning smile. “Welcome, travellers. Can I interest you in anything?”

“Bone broth for the little one,” Din responds.

“Oh, well, you're in luck. I just took down a grinjer, so there's plenty. Can I interest either of you gentlemen in a porringer of broth as well?”

“Yes, for him. None for me,” Din says.

“Very well,” the proprietor says, flashing Luma a grin. “I’ll just - ”

“That one over there,” the Mandalorian cuts in, nodding at a muscular woman sitting alone at a corner table, pointedly not looking their way. Luma’s heart stops as he takes her in: _Warrior. Dangerous. Doesn’t belong here. Shit - teardrop tattoo. Alderaan. How did I not notice her as we walked in?_

“When did she arrive?” Luma wonders aloud.

The proprietor shrugs. “Well, I’ve seen her here for the last week or so.”

“What’s her business here?” Din demands.

“Business?” she repeats, voice clouded in confusion. “There’s not much business in Sorgan, so I really can't say…”

Din removes another coin from his satchel and tosses it the woman’s way, and her eyes widen. “Well, I must say she doesn’t strike me as a log runner, that’s for sure.” She tucks the coin into her apron hurriedly. “Well, thank you, sir! I will get those broths to you as soon as possible, and I will throw in two flagons of spotchka for you and yours, just for good measure. I’ll be right back with that.”

_You and yours? The hell does that mean?_

Din abruptly stands, his chair harshly scraping against the wooden floor, and Luma glances over at the woman’s empty table. _Fuck. Where did she go?_

“Keep an eye on the kid,” Din grunts at him.

“No, Din, wait -!”

But it’s too late. The Mandalorian’s already disappeared through the front entrance, the curtains fluttering ominously behind him.

He sighs and glances down at the child, who twitches an ear at him. “He’s not a very good listener, huh?” The kid blows a raspberry in what Luma decides to take as agreement.

The proprietor returns, setting their soups and flagons on the table. Luma pushes one of the bowls closer to the kid and hands him a wooden spoon. “Here you are, and - oh! Where did your husband go?”

He gapes at her. “Excuse me?”

“Big guy in the armor? He's a Mandalorian, right?” she says, frowning in confusion.

Luma’s jaw works soundlessly for a moment before he finds his voice. “Yes, but. We’re. Um. We’re not - ”

“Oh! Oh, my. Well, my sincerest apologies,” she says, though she looks even more lost than before. “I just assumed, with you two and the kid…”

“It’s fine,” Luma stammers, wanting desperately for this conversation to be over and for his cheeks to stop flaming.

Part of him understands the implication of two adults traveling with a child in most cultures, but another, bigger part of him is simply confounded by the fact that anyone could think that the Mandalorian could ever be interested in someone like him in _that_ way in any universe.

“We’re not together, we’re just...” Well. Actually... What the hell were they? _Friends_ seems too presumptuous. _Partners_ has a whole world of other implications Luma decidedly does _not_ want to think about right now. “Um. Traveling... companions?” His words don’t sound convincing even to his own ears.

“Right, traveling companions. Yes, sir,” she agrees in a tone more humoring than sincere. “Well, do let me know if you or your companions need anything.” And with that, she flees.

Luma sighs. “Let’s hope Din doesn’t ever find out about that conversation,” he says, looking down at the child - except.

_Shit._

“Kid? Kid?!” He looks around the common house wildly. The child is nowhere to be seen, and his bowl of broth is gone as well.

Luma grabs his stick and hobbles through the curtains into the blinding sunlight as fast as his leg will allow. As soon as he passes through the curtains, he hears telltale clanking, grunts, and shouts of the Mandalorian in the middle of a tense battle. _Shit, shit, shit!_ He limps around the corner toward the source of the noises and turns into an alleyway, where he sees Din and the warrior woman from the common house at a stand-off. They’re both lying on the ground, panting and covered in dirt, blasters pointed in each other’s faces.

And then, to Luma’s simultaneous horror and relief, he sees the child, standing a few feet in front of him, observing the pair casually while he takes a big sip of his broth.

“There you are, you little hellion! Get back here!” He limps forward hurriedly and gathers the child into his arms.

Din and the woman freeze at the noise, and both slowly turn to eye the pair incredulously.

Luma flushes. “Sorry, the kid, uh. Slipped away while I wasn’t looking. Um... Carry on?” he suggests faintly.

Somehow, the tension is broken between the two on the ground and they both sigh in relief - clearly neither warrior had actually wanted to harm the other, or one of them would have shot during his babbling. Both warriors relax, and Luma feels his pulse begin to slow to a somewhat normal pace.

“Want some soup?” Din says, that subtle wry tone to his voice that Luma is starting to recognize as his incredibly dry sense of humor. 

The woman huffs in amusement and rolls to her feet, then extends her hand to the Mandalorian. He takes it without hesitation. 

“Cara Dune,” she says. 

“You put up one hell of a fight, Cara,” is all Din says in return.

_Interesting. He still doesn’t feel comfortable giving out his name. Perhaps I shouldn’t use his name in front of others? Or at all?_

“Could say the same for you, Mando,” Cara says, smirking. She turns to look at Luma and the child, then takes in his uneven posture as he leans heavily on the gaderffii stick with a raised brow. “Let’s talk inside at your table. Looks like your friend needs to give that leg a break. What’s your name?”

Luma nods an awkward greeting. “Dr. Luma Pershing. It’s nice to meet you, Miss Dune, though I’m fine, really. Granted, I do think returning to the table would be best for the little one while he drinks his soup,” he sighs, noting in despair that the child has already covered a fair portion of his robes in broth.

Cara snorts. “You got it, Doc.”

They make their way back inside to the table, where the proprietor doesn’t miss a beat before getting another chair for their new guest. “Shall I get another flagon for the miss?”

Cara flashes her a roguish grin. “If you’d be so kind, gorgeous.”

The proprietor blushes faintly and scampers away, and Luma stares at Cara in awe. _How does she have the confidence to just… do that?_

Cara looks between the two men and the child, who is again contentedly sipping at his soup while Luma uselessly wipes at his soiled robes.

“So, I’ve gotta ask,” she says. “You three are an unusual bunch to travel together. A Mandalorian, a doctor, and a baby? You gotta admit it sounds like the beginning of a joke.”

Luma feels amazing unbidden, defensive bristling rise inside him at her comment. _We’re not a joke,_ he wants to snap, though logically he knows she means nothing offensive by the comment. 

Din merely shrugs. “Long story. We need some place to lay low for a while from Imperial remnants.” He tilts his head toward the teardrop tattoo on her cheekbone. “I’m guessing you’re doing the same as us.”

At that moment, the proprietor returns with Cara’s spotchka, who takes it with a wink. She downs a long, impressive swig and sets the flagon down on the table with a soft thud. “Imperial and New Republic alike, unfortunately. I’m an ex-shock trooper. Abandoned my post, so now no one’s happy with me.” She laughs bitterly, then leans back in her chair. “Saw most of my action mopping up after Endor, mostly ex-Imperial warlords. They wanted it fast and quiet. They'd send us in on the drop ships. No support, just us. Then when the Imps were gone, the politics started. We were peacekeepers, protecting delegates, suppressing riots. Not what I signed up for.”

Luma winces in sympathy. He certainly understands her feeling of betrayal and disillusionment.

“How’d you end up here?” Din asks.

Cara smirks at him. “Let’s just call it an early retirement,” she says, and downs the rest of her flagon. “Look, I knew you were Guild. I figured you had a fob on me. That's why I came at you so hard.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” the Mandalorian says easily. Clearly, all is forgiven.

“Well, this has been a real treat. Mando, Dr. Pershing, kid,” Cara says, flashing another grin at the trio, “but unless you wanna go another round, Mando, one of us is gonna have to move on, and I was here first.” And with that, she saunters away.

Din turns to Luma. “Well, it looks like this planet’s taken.”

“It’s not as if we don’t have plenty of other options,” he shrugs. “Although we should get back to the ship soon so we can get the kid into some of his fresh robes. I’m pretty sure he got more soup on himself than in his mouth.”

The Mandalorian sighs. “Good thing we got all those extra towels.”

*

Later that evening, Luma is elbow-deep into the exposed bowels of the Razor Crest, scowling in concentration as he completes his final task for the night: fine-tuning the signal encryption processor. Din has become strangely quiet over the last two hours as he’s worked on the ship, only moving when Luma asks for the man to hand him another tool if both hands are occupied.

“Drill, please,” he says absently, and he feels the other man carefully place the weighty tool into his outstretched palm.

“Okay, that’s pretty much all I can do for now,” he eventually says, replacing the final metal plate of the ship’s hull. “Signal scrambler is functioning at a higher capacity, so even warships will have trouble seeing us now, not just dinky little X-Wings. I fiddled with the ion accelerator a bit too and was able to squeeze another 7% efficiency out of it. Also, you have a leaky fuel line which I patched, but you’ll still need to replace it soon. Oh, and I don’t have the materials for it on me, but if we’re ever able to stop by a shipyard, hell, even a scrap yard, I could wrangle up some more powerful deflector shields for you. It would just take some time, minimal materials, and a blowtorch, but I could really amp up her defenses.”

He sets the drill back into the open toolbox Din had provided him and reaches for his gaderffii stick on the ground. “You know,” he says idly, “this thing is starting to grow on me. I should probably learn how to actually use it properly if I have to carry it around with me everywhere anyway.”

“Icouldteachyou,” the Mandalorian blurts out. Luma raises a curious eyebrow as the man pauses, clears his throat, and says again, carefully, slowly, “I meant, I could teach you. As a thank you for upgrading the Razor Crest.”

Luma blinks in surprise. He’d meant what he usually means when he says wants to learn to do something - research the hell out of it. He hadn’t expected the warrior to offer hands-on training. It was certainly a generous offer, except… “You know I’ve never trained anything in my life except for my brain, right? And with my leg, I’ll be even more useless. I don’t think you know what you’re getting into. Honestly, I think training me would be more trouble than it’s worth for you.”

The Mandalorian scoffs. “Useless? I saw how you handled that trooper back on the base. The fact that you’ve had no training makes it even more impressive - it means you have good instincts. You’re more capable than you realize. Besides, your leg is all the more reason for you to learn to fight. If you can’t run, fighting becomes your only option if you’re cornered.”

A shiver of fear runs through him at the thought of being cornered by Gideon, of having to attempt to fight back, but he knows in his core the man is right. If he’s going to survive, he’ll need to do everything in his power to give himself the best fighting chance, limp or no limp. He nods determinedly. “I suppose you’re right. I’ll take you up on that offer, then. Thank you.”

He reaches up self-consciously to nudge his lenses higher up his nose, but forgets his hands are currently covered in grease. He smudges the dark lenses and curses, then takes them off to wipe them off on the man’s pajamas he’s still wearing. He freezes upon realizing that he - and as such, the man’s borrowed clothes - are entirely covered in oil and grime from the ship’s innards.

“It’s okay,” Din assures him, seeing his panicked expression. “I don’t care if they’re ruined. If a pair of ratty pajamas are the price of a fully upgraded ship, I’d consider that a bargain.”

“It’s really nothing,” Luma mumbles, flushing slightly. “And it’s hardly fully upgraded, I just did some minor tuning.”

“It’s not nothing,” Din insists. “It’s incredibly helpful, so thank you.”

Luma clears his throat self-consciously and casts about for something to say in response that won't make him sound like an idiot.

Suddenly, he’s saved by the noise of a snapping twig and crunching leaves. He stiffens in alarm, but Din shakes his head. “Civilians. They’re too noisy to be anyone to worry about.”

Sure enough, two men appear out of the darkness, one of them holding a lantern. They’re in plain, humble clothes, and Luma can see a cargo sled behind them loaded with meager supplies. _Farmers,_ Luma thinks. _Likely spotchka krill farmers, from the dyes of their clothes and the climate of Sorgan._

“Excuse me,” the taller of the two men says timidly.

“Sir,” the other begins.

Luma can practically hear the annoyed eye roll as Din snaps, “Is there something I can help you with?” The Mandalorian turns to face them, arms crossed irritably.

The shorter one with the lantern puffs up a bit at Din’s dismissive tone. “Uh, yeah. Raiders.”

“We have money,” the other adds hopefully.

“So you think I’m some kind of mercenary?” Din deadpans.

Luma can’t help but snort at that, and the farmers look at him in surprise and confusion, seemingly noticing him for the first time.

“I’ll, uh. I’ll check on the kid,” he tells the Mandalorian, and limps heavily up the side gangway, trusting the man to get rid of the farmers for himself. He opens the bunk to find the child, sleeping soundly in a pair of his new robes and nestled in the leather hammock Din had installed for him as soon as they returned to the Razor Crest.

He’s watching the child’s tiny chest rise up and down in deep, calm breaths, wondering at how he’s become so incredibly fond of the kid in such a short time, when Din appears.

“So, _slight_ change of plans...”

*

An hour later, Luma finds himself on the farmers’ cargo sled, staring up at the night sky. It’s a tight squeeze, with himself, the two farmers (Stoke and Caben, he learns), Din, the kid, Cara Dune, and their lightly packed bags, but somehow, he can’t bring himself to mind.

“This planet is so quiet,” he says lowly to Din, so as not to disturb the kid or Cara, both of whom are sleeping soundly. “It feels surreal.”

“Yeah. Reminds me a little of my home planet,” the Mandalorian admits so quietly Luma nearly doesn’t make out the words. He blinks in surprise when he registers the man’s words.

“You weren’t born on Mandalore?”

“Nah. A little rural planet like this one. Imperial droids destroyed our settlement when I was nine, killed my parents. My tribe rescued me, took me in and raised me. Trained me to be one of them.” The man's voice sounds distant, trapped in a memory.

“I didn't realize you were a foundling," Luma says. "I’m sorry. That must have been terrifying.”

Din tilts his head in acknowledgement. “It was, but I ended up in good hands. How old did you say you were when your boss took you in?”

He grimaces at the memory. “Ten. I was from Prim, a small city planet that tried to declare neutrality during the Clone Wars. Naturally, the Empire razed it to the ground. They were about to kill off the survivors, myself included, but I managed to make a case for my intelligence. He decided I was more useful to the Empire alive than dead, and I did everything in my power to make sure he continued believing that for the next twenty-five years. That is, until you and the kid came along,” he amends.

The two men sit in silence for a moment, watching the stars filter through the branches of the trees overhead.

“My mom died when I was seven,” Luma suddenly finds himself saying, though he has no idea why. “She was sick for a long time, as far back as I can remember, and she finally had to sell me to my old master once she realized she couldn’t take care of me anymore. You know the last thing she said to me? ‘Make yourself useful and survive for me, no matter what.’ And for my master, I did. And then for most of my life in the Empire, I did. And for _so_ long, I thought that was enough."

He pauses for a moment, breathing in the starlight and calming presence of the Mandalorian and the child at his side before he continues, softly, "But somehow, Din, I - I feel like I’ve lived more in the last two days than the last twenty-five years. Like the moment I chose to defect is the moment I took my first breath. And maybe... maybe that’s more important than _just_ surviving, you know?”

Din is quiet for a while, helmet tilted contemplatively toward the night sky, before he finally says, softly, “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

When Luma eventually drifts off, unbeknownst to him, his head comes to rest lightly against the Mandalorian’s shoulder. For once, he doesn’t dream of Gideon, but of green trees and glittering stars, of grease-stained pajamas and gaderffii sticks.


	5. The One You Feed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luma and his companions arrive at Stoke and Caben’s village. There, he finds that the past is not so easily escaped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, folks! So sorry for the wait - work has been kicking my ass lately. Funnily enough, my students are currently doing a creative writing unit, and a few of them are even writing Star Wars and Mandalorian fanfic. It’s been so cool to watch them obsess over their stories while I obsess over mine (though I genuinely hope none of them ever find this fic… lol).
> 
> Another reason this chapter took so long is because I also spent an insane amount of hours revising previous chapters. I didn’t change any plot points so don’t feel like you have to reread anything (unless you want to, of course). I just added some more description in areas I felt the prose was sparse and reworded some awkward turns of phrase to make things flow a bit more smoothly.
> 
> The Mandalorian legend Din refers to in this chapter is an adaptation of the beautiful Native American folktale, “Legend of Two Wolves,” which is commonly attributed to the Cherokee tribe. If you haven’t read the original story, you can do so [here.](https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TwoWolves-Cherokee.html)
> 
> Thanks so much to all of you who have left kudos and reviews for me to fawn over while I obsessively wrote and rewrote this chapter like a madwoman. Ya’ll rock and kept me going when it seemed like I would never finish this darn thing.
> 
> Finally, if you’d like updates on the next chapter, feel free to follow me on tumblr [here.](https://audustaire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Luma jolts awake as the cargo sled comes to a sudden, shuddering stop. He’s disoriented for a moment, blinking the sleep and twin morning suns from his eyes as he takes in his surroundings. Cara Dune, who is sprawled atop the hay on the opposite end of the sled, is already wide awake and eyeing him in what appears to be amusement.

“Mornin’, Doc,” she says, her smirk melding into a satisfied grimace as she stretches her muscled arms wide. “Sleep well?”

Luma’s brow furrows in confusion at her expression, but any questions he might have voiced are cut off by an alarmed yelp when he feels the side of the cart he’s leaning against _breathe_. He looks down in bewilderment, takes stock of his position, and recalls - to his utmost horror - he’d been stupid enough to fall asleep resting his head against the Mandalorian’s shoulder.

He immediately extricates himself from the warrior and scrambles to the other side of the cart next to Cara, whose expression indicates she’s doing everything in her power to fight back a snicker.

The Mandalorian stirs at the commotion. “We’re here?” he says, voice husky with sleep even through the modulator. He sits up slowly, looking down to the child sleeping at his side as if to assure himself the kid is still there.

Luma clears his throat and carefully pushes his glasses back into place. _Get it together, damnit!_ “It appears so.” He shoots Cara a vicious glare, daring her to say otherwise, but she merely shakes her head slightly and makes a zipping motion across her smirking lips.

They turn to look at the village, which consists of a small cluster of pointed thatched roof huts surrounded by the greenest grass he’s ever seen and serene krill fields. Some of the villagers, slowly milling about their morning routines, look up at their arrival and wave. 

“It’s beautiful,” Luma says, his voice hushed in awe. Prim had consisted mostly of bustling industrial ports, crumbling concrete, and smog-filled air, and while Imperial starships and labs had a certain cold beauty in their sterility, it all paled in comparison to _this_. 

Stoke leaps from the front of the cart and makes his way around to the back, opening its rear gate for them. “Ain’t it, though?” he grins. “Welcome to our home.”

“It seems like they’re happy to see us,” Cara says, eyeing the pack of children running excitedly across the krill fields toward them.

“Looks like it,” Din mutters. The cluster of children reach the side of the cart, giggling and whispering to themselves as they eye the newcomers with curiosity. One small girl at the front of the pack gives a shy wave to the kid in Din’s arms. 

“Hi,” she whispers, and the child reaches out its tiny claws in greeting.

“Folks were pretty excited when we commed ahead last night and told everyone we finally found some help. It’ll be nice to have a sense of safety around here again,” Caben tells them. He looks down at one of the kids who’s tugging at his pant leg and reaches down, hoists the boy onto his hip. “Hey, buddy. We missed you. You have fun at your gramma’s?”

Luma finds himself smiling softly at the sight as the boy chatters excitedly back at Caben and Stoke. _It’s good there are other kids here. Maybe the kid can play a bit with them, practice socializing. It would be good for him to have a bit of normalcy after all he’s been through._

He slings the bag Din lent him (stuffed to the brim with his treasured new clothes) onto his back, grabs his gaderffii stick, and scrambles off the sled with some difficulty. Stoke and Din both reach out to assist him but he pointedly pretends to not see, hoping to maintain some air of independence, limp be damned. Din, carrying the child, and Cara grab their belongings and follow close behind.

“Miss Dune, Caben and I have an extra bed for you. And Mr. Mandalorian, sir, you and your family can stay with Omera and her daughter Winta here,” Stoke says, putting a friendly arm around the small, dark-haired girl who’d waved at the child. “They have a barn with a cot that should be big enough for the two of you, and Omera was able to wrangle up a crib for your little one.”

He feels a slight heat begin to pinken his cheeks. _This again? Why is the damn universe determined to make my life as awkward as possible for however long I have until Gideon finds me?_ “Oh, um, no, we’re not -”

“That sounds great, thank you,” Din interrupts.

Luma shoots him a bewildered look, but the man only gives him a small, near-imperceptible shake of his helmet. Behind Stoke, he sees Cara Dune raise an eyebrow, but she remains silent.

As the group gathers their belongings and begins to make their way toward the village, Din leans into Luma’s ear and says lowly in Mando’a, “Te kih tionas val ganar be tion'jor vi cuyir slanar tome, te jate'shya. Duumir val kar'taylir meg val copad.” _(“The less questions they have about why we’re traveling together, the better. Let them assume what they want.”)_

_Ah. So that’s what he’s up to. I suppose it does make sense if his goal is for all of us to fly under the radar, but it’s surprising he’s so willing to go along with it, considering, well. It’s me._

“Ni elek - meh gar mirdir ibic cuyir te serimir nari,” he whispers back, desperately trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks. _(“I suppose - if you think it’s the right move.”)_

“Ni vaabir, meh gar cuyir yaim'la ti bic,” Din returns. _(“I do, as long as you’re comfortable with it.”)_

“Nayc, gar're staabi. Nayc tionas ibic ara,” he says lowly. _(“No, you’re right. Less questions this way.”)_

Stoke and Caben lead them toward the center of the village to a small, moss-covered barn. Upon their approach, a striking woman emerges from within, clutching an armful of blankets. 

“Everyone, this is Omera,” Caben says. “Omera, this is Ms. Dune, Dr. Pershing, and the Mandalorian.”

“Welcome,” she greets them warmly. “Our village is so grateful you all are here to help us. Mr. Mandalorian - is that what I should call you?”

Din lifts a shoulder stiffly. “That or ‘Mando’ is fine.”

Omera, thankfully, seems unphased by the Mandalorian’s somewhat cold demeanor, and merely nods in acceptance. “Mando, then. Stoke and Caben said you were traveling with your family. I’m afraid the barn will be a bit crowded for all three of you, but I’ve tried to make it as comfortable as possible…”

She gestures for them to follow her inside, and Cara shoots them a quick parting wave as she follows Stoke and Caben to their home. Din has to duck through the doorway after Omera and Luma follows, noting with some irritation his head is several inches away from the frame.

The barn is cramped but cozy, in that warm, dusty kind of way he distantly remembers from his childhood home. The floor is littered in soft straw, and two of the four walls are covered from dirt floor to raftered ceiling in various pieces of farming equipment. There’s a cot nestled into the back corner, and in the middle of the room sits a carved wooden crib.

“This is great, Omera, thank you,” he tells her earnestly.

“I’m glad it’s to your liking.” Omera sets the blankets in her arms atop the cot and turns to Luma. “Dr. Pershing, was it? It’s a pleasure to meet you. And this is your little one?” she asks, gesturing to the child in Din’s arms. “What’s his name?”

Luma blinks in surprise, unprepared for the question. “Oh, we haven’t actually… um. We haven’t named him yet?” he ventures. He hopes his glasses hide his slight flinch as his inflection unintentionally turns the statement into a question. 

Omera furrows her brow in confusion, but Din, as per usual, comes to his rescue. “It’s a Mandalorian custom,” he tells her shortly, but offers no further explanation.

She nods easily, unphased. “I see. Then please, make yourselves at home. The village is setting up a welcome feast for you in the village square. Once you get settled in, we would love for you all to join us.”

Din doesn’t respond, and instead turns his back on her to get the child settled into his new crib. Luma barely manages to suppress an eye roll, idly calculating the statistical odds that he would end up traveling with the one person in the galaxy apparently less socially aware than him.

“We’ll be there,” he says, giving Omera a small smile. “Thank you.”

After she says her goodbye and ducks out of the barn, Luma limps over to the cot and sits heavily upon it. He rubs his wounded thigh absently and eyes Din as he carefully places the child in his new crib. 

“How does it feel? Any change from yesterday?” the bounty hunter asks, nodding toward his leg.

“No,” he admits. “With the way it’s healed, the limp is going to be permanent. Unless, of course, I manage to get a biogen muscle replacement, which would require extensive surgery that costs an astronomical amount of credits, not to mention technology that’s only available in the Inner Rim - which is _not_ a place I can be any time in the near or distant future.”

“We could find a way to sneak in, maybe pay a surgeon under the table -”

Luma shakes his head. “We can’t risk it - not for an injury that isn’t life-threatening, especially not when it would put all our lives in danger. It’s simply not practical. People get hurt on the Outer Rim every day and have to live with the consequences, and now I’m no different. For now, I’m just grateful I can walk at all - that I’m _alive_ at all.”

And honestly, he is. He should have died when Karga shot him, should have died the several times the Mandalorian trained a blaster on him, should have died at Gideon’s hand a hundred times over. As far as he’s concerned, the last three days with Din and the child have been a bizarre, undeserved bonus he’s somehow lucked into receiving - and limp or no limp, he is going to continue enjoying it for as long as he can.

The Mandalorian is still for a moment, then says, quietly, “Gar kebi cuyir ijaat, Luma. Ni Kelir ijaat bic.” _(“That’s an honorable decision, Luma. I will respect it.”)_

He blinks once, twice, and finally, upon fully registering the man’s words, chooses to acknowledge only the part that least confounds him. “You called me Luma.”

“I did,” Din returns, his voice stiff. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes - I mean, _no._ No, it’s fine,” he stammers. “It’s just - it's like you with your name, I think. I hadn’t realized I haven’t heard anyone use my first name in a long time, either. I've been 'Dr. Pershing' to everyone for as long as I can remember, so to be 'Luma' again, it's... It’s nice. Weird, but nice.”

The two men consider each other for a moment from across the small barn. A pregnant pause fills the humid air, broken occasionally only by the dim murmur of distant villagers.

“Speaking of,” Luma blurts out, eager to fill the silence, “you’ve been telling everyone to call you ‘Mando.’ Are you _sure_ you’re fine with me calling you ‘Din’? I can use ‘Mando’ in front of others if you want to keep your name under wraps. Actually - _shit._ I shouldn’t have told them my name, should I?" Icy terror begins to flood his veins at his sudden realization. "Oh, hell, I’m going to get us all killed and I’ve only been traveling with you for three days, one of which I was unconscious, and I’m already fucking up -”

The barn that had once seemed warm and cozy is suddenly stifling. The wooden plank walls swell inward and somehow he can’t get enough _air_ -

“ _Luma._ Hey. Stop.” Din takes a step forward, hand outstretched. Luma instinctively winces and tenses his body in preparation - though for what, he’s unsure.

The Mandalorian pauses his advancement then says, quietly, “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He forces his trembling frame to relax, and takes a few deep, shaky breathes. “Sorry, I know. Just, you know. Old habits.”

Din is quiet for another moment, and Luma cringes. _Why am I incapable of shutting my damn mouth?_

“It’s okay,” the Mandalorian eventually says. “I didn’t think of it either. But going forward, you’re right. You probably shouldn’t use your real name with strangers. And yeah, I’d prefer if you didn’t use my name in front of others. If it’s just us and the kid, though, it’s fine.”

Luma huffs a breath of relief, further calming his frazzled nerves. _It’s fine, you idiot. Calm the hell down._ “Okay, yeah. I can… I can do that.”

“Good. Now get yourself unpacked. Sounds like we have a feast to attend.”

*

They make their way to the town square slowly, Din clutching the child in his arms and Luma limping at his side. When they come upon the square, they find what appears to be the entire village bustling around a long wooden table, chatting and laughing with each other as they set out various dishes in preparation. Luma feels a strange ache in his chest at the sight _._

“Mando, Dr. Pershing, please, come sit,” Omera waves at them from the table, gesturing to two empty seats next to her and Cara Dune, who raises her glass in greeting. 

“Hey, boys,” Cara grins at them. “Omera here was just telling me how she got you all settled into her barn. Sounds... _cozy._ ”

Luma feels what is starting to become a horribly familiar heat spread across his cheeks. _That’s right. Cara must know we’re not… that… Especially with how I reacted in the cart this morning._

“It works for us,” Din returns pointedly, in his best _drop it now_ voice. He sits heavily next to her, the child perched on his lap and eyeing the food before him hungrily. Luma follows suit in the adjacent chair, leaning his gaderffii stick carefully against the table between them for easy access.

Cara lifts an intrigued brow at the Mandalorian’s words but doesn’t say anything further, only nods in acceptance (much to Luma’s relief).

_Din will likely explain things to her later. It seems - for now, at least - she’s willing to not question the charade._

“Glad you all could join us,” Stoke says from across the table, nudging a bowl of hearty stew toward Luma. “We were just telling Cara here a bit about the raiders.”

“I’ll catch you up after we eat,” Cara tells Din around a mouthful of krill. “Figured we could go on a quick stakeout this afternoon, see what we’re up against for ourselves.”

Din nods wordlessly and offers a spoonful of broth to the child. Luma frowns in concern, noting that the warrior doesn’t have enough food on his plate for himself.

_He still hasn’t taken the helmet off since I’ve met him, so my hypothesis is likely correct - he’s part of some insular orthodox tribe. His helmet must not even have a retractable jaw panel to allow its wearer to eat while wearing it, which doesn’t seem practical. How does his tribe hold meals? Are they allowed to show their faces to each other, but not outsiders? And they don’t use names, either, which - how would that even work? Even the Watch used names - at least, the original Watch did. Maybe his tribe broke off from the larger clan at some point? Or maybe -_

“Think any harder and your face will stick like that,” the Mandalorian murmurs to him.

Luma jerks out of his reverie and, upon registering the man’s words, gives a sheepish twitch of his lips. “Sorry. I do that sometimes. My thoughts start moving so quickly everything else disappears for a bit. It... Well. It comes in handy sometimes,” he admits with an awkward smile, trying desperately not to recall any of the times he’s had to retreat into his mind to avoid reality.

Din leans in, lowers his voice enough that the rest of the table won’t notice, and switches to Mando’a. “Vaabir vi linibar at ba'slanar? Ni liser kemir gar. Vi liser Jor'chaajir bic bat te adiik.” _(“Do you need to go back to the barn? I can walk you. We could blame it on the kid.”)_

Luma warms at the offer, but shakes his head. “I’m fine, but thank you,” he whispers back. “I was just thinking about how you’ll eat if you don’t take off your helmet. Your religion forbids you from taking it off in front of outsiders, correct? In fact, I don’t see how we can possibly share close quarters if that’s the case. Surely it’ll be uncomfortable for you to keep it on for however long we’ll be here with no breaks?”

The Mandalorian shrugs. “It doesn’t bother me. When I was younger I used to travel with a crew on a ship only a little bigger than the Razor Crest for months at a time. I’m used to it. I’ll just grab a plate to bring back to the barn, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a minute to eat later. Maybe you could take the kid for a walk?”

“Of course,” Luma says, almost relieved the man is finally asking even a small favor of him. He knows he’ll forever be in the man’s debt for finally freeing him from Gideon’s clutches, but he’ll gladly take any opportunity to lessen the imbalance between them (no matter how many times Din insists he owes him nothing). 

As they eat, Caben and Stoke introduce them to the twenty or so families that make up the small village. It seems nearly everyone in the hamlet is either related by blood or marriage - it’s only thanks to his eidetic memory that he’s able to piece together a rough mental map of the village’s family tree. Because that’s what they are, he realizes, watching as the villagers gently rib one another, fawn over each other’s kids, question Cara and Din about their past adventures - they’re a family.

For a reason he cannot even begin to fathom, he finds it _absolutely terrifying._

He chokes a mouthful of stew down past the lump in his throat and takes several precise, measured breaths through his nose. Eventually (when he feels like he’s no longer drowning) he resurfaces and takes quick stock of his surroundings, hoping no one took note of his momentary malfunction. Sure enough, though, out of the corner of his eye he sees the Mandalorian’s helmet tilted slightly toward him.

It’s a wonder the man’s gaze is so piercing even through the visor. 

*

After helping the villagers clean up, Luma takes the kid for a walk around the village’s perimeter so the warrior can eat. Thankfully, Din doesn’t mention his strange behavior at the feast once they are alone in their quarters - the bounty hunter merely gives him a nod of thanks when he picks up the kid and announces they’re going to explore for a while. 

He’s leaning heavily against a wooden fence that skirts the outer edge of the village, watching the kid chase after a frog as he ponders what exactly came over him earlier.

Terror has been a constant presence in his life since he was a child - he isn’t by any means unfamiliar with the emotion. In fact, thanks to Gideon, he’s incredibly well-versed in fear - both in experiencing and causing it. Until now, though, his fears have always had a logical root cause. He’s always been able to trace back every fear to those basic, animal instincts that drive all living beings: avoiding death, pain, or loss at any cost. His fears have always been logical, reasonable, _easy_ for him to rationalize into insignificance.

But just now, the feeling of inescapable dread (something he typically only associates with mortal peril or, well, Gideon) was caused simply by having a meal with a group of peaceful villagers.

_Am I so fucked up that now even the sight of a happy, functioning family sends me into a tailspin? What the hell is wrong with me?_

It’s at that moment that the kid takes a tiny leap and latches onto his prey. He rises to his feet, turns around to face Luma, and raises the squirming, captured frog in the air as if to say, _See?_

Luma can’t help but smile at his obvious pride, and decides to shake off his gloomy speculations for another day. _(I need to just enjoy my time away from Gideon as much as I can. Odds are, none of this will matter soon anyway.)_ “Good job, kid! Didn’t think you had it in you.” 

His smile drops, however, as the kid promptly shoves half of the frog into his mouth. “No, no, no, no, do _not_ eat that!” He limps over as fast as he can to pick him up, but it’s too late. He’s already swallowed the frog whole and staring at Luma with those wide, innocent eyes.

He sighs in defeat, then looks solemnly at the child in his arms. “That better not make you sick, kid, or Din will kill me. Not that I want you sick either,” he amends, patting the kid’s back, “but, you know. He's scarier than me.”

“I used to eat frogs like that all the time growing up on Alderaan. Not raw, granted, but he should be fine. They’re not poisonous,” a voice calls out from behind him.

He startles slightly and looks behind him, then relaxes when he sees Cara Dune approaching him, an amused glint in her eyes. 

He sighs in relief at her words, then places the kid back down on the ground, silently vowing to keep a closer watch. “That’s good to know, thank you. I grew up on Prim - too industrialized for much wildlife.”

Cara winces at his words. “Prim, huh? Sorry to hear it.” She joins him in leaning against the rickety fence, watching the kid resume his trek around the field in the late morning sun.

Luma shrugs. “By the time the Empire attacked us, I didn’t have anyone left, anyway. Nothing compared to what you lost on Alderaan, I’m sure.”

There’s a flicker of pain in her eyes for a moment, but she only lifts a shoulder and mutters, “It was a long time ago.”

He thinks of his mother, lost to him now for nearly thirty years, but the pain still sits, sharp and waiting, in the hollow of his chest. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.” 

“No,” she says, her voice soft. “No, it doesn’t.” 

They’re both quiet for a moment as they watch the kid stare in awe at a butterfly fluttering around his ears. Luma feels another ache in his chest as he watches the child play, but it’s a different kind of hurt than the one his mother left. It’s a warm, almost comforting sort of pain, like a bacta patch on an open wound. 

Eventually, Cara breaks the silence. She tilts her head toward him and smirks, all the cockiness and swagger of the old Cara returned, and says, “So, Doc, I’ve gotta ask. You and the Mandalorian…”

He feels a horribly familiar, mortifying heat begin to creep up his neck. “Um, okay, yeah - I can. Um. I can explain?”

She raises an amused eyebrow at him. “Can you?”

“It wasn’t my idea, alright?!” he yelps. He winces at his own volume, then whips his head around to check for potentially eavesdropping villagers. When he sees they’re in the clear, he gives Cara a prickly glare that would have sent his assistants scurrying (though she merely looks delighted at his irritation) and continues at a more reasonable pitch. “Look, the Mandalorian said it would be easier if we just let the villagers assume what they want about us. You know, less questions about why we’re all traveling together. There’s a massive bounty on all of our heads now, and we can’t risk anyone in the village getting tempted by a finder’s fee, so if you would _please_ just go along with it, we can get this job done and be on our way -”

“Woah, woah, woah, little man,” Cara says, slapping a hand on his shoulder that he assumes was meant to be comforting, but instead knocks the wind out of him. “Relax. I get it. I won’t rat on you. Besides…” Here, she gives Luma a wink that tells him he is _not_ going to enjoy the next words that come out of her mouth. “If nothing else, at least this little charade of yours gets you a few nights in the same bed as that hunk.”

Luma was right. He absolutely does _not_ enjoy those words. His mouth opens and closes several times, but the only noise he seems capable of making for the moment is an odd croaking sound.

Cara chuckles and elbows him playfully. “I’m just messin’ with you, Doc. And don’t worry about me, I’m no threat - I don’t swing that way. Besides, I’ve got my eye on that gorgeous widow hosting you boys.”

Luma’s brain, in all its impressive capabilities, ceases to function. He simply stares at her, eyes wide behind his lenses while his mouth hangs open idiotically.

Cara simply snorts and ruffles his hair the way Ti’la and his mother used to. “I like you, Doc. You’re a cutie,” she says, and saunters away to leave him in pieces behind her.

As he stutters and watches her leave, an unbidden thought arises: _She wouldn’t say that if she knew who you were. What you are._

Unwelcome as the thought is, he knows it to be true.

*

Before Din joins Cara on their stakeout of the raiders’ camp that afternoon, he hands Luma a wrinkled scrap of paper filled with tiny, cramped writing.

“Here,” the Mandalorian grunts.

“What’s this?” Luma squints at the note, trying to decipher the writing while also holding it out of reach from the child’s inquisitive claws.

“Instructions for a workout.”

Luma stares at the Din, deeply concerned he’s lost his mind. “Um. Thank you?”

Din huffs irritably as if _he’s_ the one behaving irrationally. “I agreed to train you, right? Well, the first step is for you to start building up some strength. All the instincts and training in the world won’t get you far unless you have some muscle to follow through.”

A spike of anxiety juts through his gut. Build a weapon of mass destruction from scraps? Fine. Become fluent in a new language in two weeks? Sure. But this? This was uncharted territory. “Again, I have to ask, are you _absolutely sure_ you want to train me? I have never exercised in my life. Ever. This is going to be, I suspect, an extremely embarrassing display.”

“You’ll be fine. Really. Just follow the instructions,” the bounty hunter says, a note of something that sounds like amusement coloring his tone. Luma squints at him suspiciously, but the Mandalorian merely gives him a quick nod goodbye, and ducks out of the barn.

_Well, then._

And so, Luma returns with the child to the semi-privacy of the grassy field in the village outskirts, determined to not disappoint the Mandalorian.

As it turns out, Din is right. The instructions he left are clear and mostly involve simple push ups, sit ups, planks, and Luma posing in positions that require him to hold his own bodyweight at various angles. While he is thankful he doesn’t have an audience (the child aside, who seems more fascinated with catching beetles than watching him), he doesn’t feel anywhere near as useless or miserable as he thought he would. Rather, he finds that eventually he reaches a place where he is so focused on not collapsing out of sheer exhaustion that his brain simply… quiets. For a moment, the frantic, incessant thoughts that typically plague him are gone and all that’s left are his body and his breaths.

It’s not until he’s finished, having followed all of Din’s instructions, that he realizes the suns are noticeably lower in the afternoon sky, and Cara and Din are likely due home soon.

He lays there in the grass for a moment, panting into the humid air and reveling in the feeling of complete physical exhaustion. Eventually, wipes the sweat from his brow, grabs his gaderffii stick, and gathers the child back into his arms, who’s covered in dust and bits of dried leaves.

“Come on, buddy, we both need baths. You can eat bugs later, you little weirdo,” he says fondly.

*

Omera, thankfully, spots him limping back to the barn, drenched in sweat with the dusty child clutched in one arm. Her eyes twinkle in amusement at their disheveled states, and she kindly offers to fetch a bucket of warm, soapy water and washcloths for the barn.

He accepts gladly, and some time later finds himself newly cleaned and attempting to chase down the kid into a fresh set of robes. Which is proving _much_ more difficult than the bath had been.

“Come on, kid, no, you can’t stay naked, it’s simply not _decent._ We are _guests_ here -”

At that moment, Omera returns with a quiet knock at the door. “Can I help?”

Luma looks from her, down to his own half-soaked form, over to the child who’s gleefully running around the barn stark-naked, then back to Omera, and sighs in defeat. “Please.”

Together, they eventually manage to wrangle the kid and get him dressed. Luma, now truly exhausted, sits heavily down on the cot and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Thank you for your assistance,” he tells her. “I’m just glad the Mandalorian wasn’t here to see that.”

“You call your husband ‘the Mandalorian’?”

Luma opens his eyes at that and glances at her. She gazes back at him, her brow furrowed slightly in confusion, or possibly concern. _Shit._ “Um. Well, In front of others, yes,” he stammers. “He… Um. He doesn’t like to give out his name.”

“It seems you both like to keep secrets, then,” she says, lifting her lips in a small smile. Luma’s breath freezes in his chest for a moment before she continues, “You reminded me of a pair of teenagers, whispering to each other at the table.”

He flushes. _Ah. I didn’t think about how that must have looked._ “I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Please, don’t apologize. You reminded me of my husband and I when we met.” There’s something broken in her expression, and Luma recalls Cara’s earlier descriptor of her: _widow._

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “Cara mentioned he’d passed.”

Omera shuts her eyes briefly, riding out the pain, and Luma immediately regrets saying anything. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I didn’t mean -”

“No,” she responds, shaking her head. “It’s nice to think about him sometimes, even if it hurts. Brom was… He wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met. Full of life, and funny _._ Stars, he was _so_ funny...”

He gives her a pained smile. Ti’la had been funny, too. 

“Brom wasn’t from the village,” Omera says, her voice distant. “He was from Naboo, and got caught in the crossfire during the Empire’s takeover. They used dioxis on the entire city, on the civilians, and his lungs… they never fully recovered. It’s a miracle he survived as long as he did.”

As she speaks, Luma feels his body go cold and his vision begin to narrow.

_(Dioxis had been one of Ti’la’s projects. He remembers her staying up late into the night for weeks on end, perfecting the molecular density of the gas so it would disperse over a large area, but still remain low enough to the ground that it could claim the highest number of lives instead of floating harmlessly up into the stratosphere._

_When, after months of tireless effort, she finally succeeded in creating a formula the bosses were happy with, he’d offered her words of congratulations, even graciously accepted her elated hug in return._

_He wonders now if Ti’la ever felt as haunted as he often was by thoughts of what the Empire would do with her projects.)_

Omera continues on, unaware of Luma’s crisis. “Brom came to our planet to die like a stray lothcat crawling under a porch to be alone in its final moments. But instead of death, he found me.” She stops here for a moment and wistfully looks out the barn’s window, watching her daughter run about the nearby field with the other village kids. “He stuck around for another five years, until he couldn’t hold out any longer. Really, he gave me more time than I could have asked for, given the circumstances, but… sometimes, I wish Winta remembered him. She was only a few months old when he died.”

Luma reaches out, grabs one of her hands with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”

She looks at him at first in surprise, then her eyes soften. “Thank you, Dr. Pershing. That’s kind of you.”

_(No, Omera, it’s not. It’s really, really not.)_

*

When Din returns from the stakeout, Luma is huddled under the blanket on their small cot, clutching the child close to his chest.

“We need to talk -” The Mandalorian stops, takes in the lumps under the covers and remarks dryly, “Your workout couldn’t have possibly gone that badly.”

Luma jumps at Din’s voice. _Shit._ He thought he had a bit more time to pull himself together. He emerges from the blankets and straightens his sweater, hoping to regain some semblance of dignity. “No, no, that was fine. Went well, actually,” he mutters. He’s felt jumpy since his conversation with Omera, like there’s an electric current skimming the surface of his skin. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just feel... weird. It’s nothing,” he mutters absently, unsure of how to further describe the feeling of his brain being slowly sucked down a drain without sounding like a lunatic. He startles as Din suddenly kneels before him and owlishly blinks the man into focus.

“What happened?” The Mandalorian reaches out a gloved hand and places it on his shaking shoulder. 

He shakes his head, tries to regain his focus, but his head is full of static. “Omera,” he murmurs, too exhausted for anything but robotic honesty.

The Mandalorian tilts his helmet. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting that answer. “What about her?”

He shrugs absently. “She told me about her husband. How he died.”

“How did he die?” Din asks. His voice hesitant, as if he knows he won’t like Luma’s response.

“Dioxis. Nerve gas," he says faintly. "It was one of ours. My friend Ti’la, actually. She was the project lead. We..." -here, he takes a deep, shuddering breath, and steels himself for his next admission. "Din, we _celebrated_ when she finished. What the fuck is wrong with me? And Ti’la - she was a good person. She was always good to me, always kind. But then she - how could she - how could _I…_ I don’t _understand_ -”

The barn around him begins to swim, and breathing becomes difficult.

“Luma -”

Distantly, he feels strong hands grip his shoulders, tries to shake them off to no avail. “I knew, I _knew_ what we were doing, but as long as I was safe, as long as I had my lab and my experiments -”

“Luma, stop -”

“No - I didn’t care, I just pushed it all down and ran where the science took me, but all along -”

“You need to breathe -”

“Ti’la, me, all of us, we were killing people, innocent, _good_ people like Omera’s husband, Winta’s father -”

His frantic words are cut off by a gasp as a pair of strong arms wrap tightly around him. Luma freezes for a moment, panicked thoughts grinding to a halt as his brain requires all its power to process the fact that _the Mandalorian is hugging him._

_Din_ is hugging him.

He stiffens at first, out of sheer unfamiliarity of the sensation. _(Who’s the last person who hugged me? Ti’la? It’s been at least five years, then.)_ It’s not particularly comfortable - the embrace is so sudden his arms are trapped between their torsos, and his face is shoved into the Mandalorian’s shoulder plate, his glasses knocked slightly askew.

As awkward as the embrace is, however, Luma finds the feeling - the simple presence of another person - bizarrely grounding. Somehow, eventually, his breaths begin to slow, matching Din’s, quieting the screaming thoughts that had been clawing at the walls of his mind.

 _To hell with it,_ he thinks, and he leans his head forward to rest on the man’s shoulder, returning the embrace as best he can. He shuts his eyes and leans his forehead against cool beskar.

After several beats, when the world stops swimming and Luma’s brain is no longer short-circuiting, Din loosens his grip slightly and murmurs, “Sorry. Is this okay?”

At this point, Luma is too tired to pretend otherwise. “Yeah - thank you. I’m the one who needs to apologize. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe I’ve caught something? Blurred vision, shortness of breath, shaking, arrhythmia - and I _feel_ like -”

“The universe is going to end?” Din cuts in. He loosens his grip slightly, backs away from the embrace just enough so that he can see Luma’s face. 

He flinches at what he assumes is the man’s searching glance under the visor and looks away, but nods meekly. “It feels like I’m going to die, but over stupid things that can’t actually hurt me. It’s… illogical. Idiotic. I’m sorry, I’ll get this sorted out -”

“I used to get them too,” Din says quietly. “After my parents died. For a long time, any time I saw a droid or heard an explosion. I’d be right back there with them, nine years old and watching them die.”

“You… Really?” Luma glances up at the man’s helmet cautiously.

“Really,” the Mandalorian insists.

“How did you make them go away?” he whispers. 

Din sighs heavily, then stands. Luma’s afraid for a moment the man is going to leave, but he simply sits next to him on the rickety cot. “Time. Patience. A lot of help from my tribe. And in the moment, human contact.”

_Ah. That’s why he hugged me. Logical, after all._

“Listen, I’m not… I’m not good. With words,” Din begins, halting and stiff. “But… I want to say something. It might come out wrong, but… Let me try?”

Wide-eyed with equal intrigue and alarm, he gives the bounty hunter a cautious nod.

“My tribe has a legend about two mythosaurs,” Din says. He looks down at his gloved fingers, which he knits together in a gesture Luma might interpret as anxious, if he didn’t know any better. “The way we were told, everyone has two mythosaurs inside them that are always at war - one represents light, all things good. The other is evil, darkness. So the legend goes, the mythosaur who wins is the one you choose to feed. The actions you take. I didn’t know your friend, so I can’t speak to her character. And I don’t know all of your past. But for the past three days I’ve watched you. I know which mythosaur you’re feeding, Luma, and it’s not the one you fear.”

His heart clenches at the man’s earnest words. Truly, he doesn’t understand what he’s done to inspire the amount of faith the Mandalorian seems to have put in him against all odds and reason, but he’s endlessly grateful for it nonetheless.

He gives Din a shaky, fragile smile, not trusting himself with a verbal response quite yet.

_I’m trying, and I think… I think he sees that. I think he sees me._

_(However…)_ “I just… I don’t know how I’m going to look Omera in the eye, continue to eat her food, stay on her property, _exist_ around her, knowing what I know. It seems like a violation. Of her, her trust. This village,” he admits.

Din shakes his head. “Well, this probably isn’t the best time to tell you this, but it won’t matter soon, anyway. We need to leave. During our stake out, Cara and I found that the raiders somehow got their hands on an Imperial Walker, which Caben and Stoke didn’t mention. It’s one of the more recent AT-ST models. Cara and I can’t handle it alone plus the raiders, so we were just about to tell the village they’ll need to pack up and move.”

Luma shuts his eyes briefly. _(Of course it’s an Imperial AT-ST. Of course._ _)_ “They can’t move, Din. Weren’t you listening to them at the feast? Their families have cultivated these fields for generations.”

“If they want to live, they’ll have to. Cara and I can’t take out that Walker by ourselves.”

“No,” he says slowly, “but I might.”

Din stares at him for a moment before responding with a flat, “What.”

“Listen,” he says hurriedly, “I know AT-ST’s inside and out. I worked in the terrestrial weapons department for years. Whatever model it is, I either worked on it myself or approved its final blueprints. If it’s one of the later walkers, we won’t be able to take out the legs, but the windshields can be ripped off if you know where to apply pressure. If we get up high enough, apply enough force in just the right place to to pry off the windshield...” he trails off, mind already racing with possibilities. 

Even through the visor, it’s clear Din is looking at him like he’s lost his mind. “How the hell am I supposed to climb an AT-ST and rip off its windshield?”

Luma shakes his head. “Not you. Me.”

“No,” the Mandalorian growls, rising to an indignant stand. “Absolutely not. And - how? You can barely walk. _No.”_

He blinks up at the man, taken aback at his sudden irritation. “Look, with enough scraps I can build practically anything. In the twenty seconds since you’ve told me about our AT-ST problem, I already sketched out four different potential prototypes in my head that I can make with the resources I’ve seen in the village. I can do this. And this way, you and Cara would only have to worry about the raiders, which is what you signed up for in the first place.”

“No,” the Mandalorian insists, crossing his arms across his chest. “Make - whatever it is you’re going to make - for me. I’ll do it.”

“Din,” he says softly, touched by the man’s apparent worry, “I’m the one who knows those machines inside and out. I know exactly where its weak points and blind spots are. Yes, it’s dangerous, but that Walker is my responsibility. And yes, I’ve got limp, but I can science my way around it. I’ve done the impossible before. Besides, I’m the one that needs to do this, so..." He pauses for a moment, frowning determinedly at the man before him. "So I need you to let me. ...Please?” 

The Mandalorian sighs heavily, shakes his head in disbelief. “And how do you propose explaining your detailed knowledge of Imperial Walkers to the village? To Cara?” he says, voice weary.

Luma winces. He hadn’t, for once, thought that far ahead, but Din was right. He didn’t see another option. “I suppose I’ll need to tell them.”

“ _No_.”

“Din -”

“ _Absolutely_ not. We can make something up -”

“ _Din,_ ” he snaps, then flinches at his harsh tone. “Sorry. But, just. _Listen,_ okay? These people - Cara, Omera, Stoke and Caben - they all deserve to know who they’re working with - if they choose to accept my help, that is. But the decision should be theirs.”

“So, what?” the Mandalorian snaps, his tone icy and scornful. “You’re just going to tell everyone we come across your entire history so they can decide whether they want to associate with you or not? We’re hiding from the Empire!”

“I know! I know, just...” He sighs and pinches the ridge of his nose in frustration. “I don’t plan on telling everyone we encounter. But these villagers are good people, and they’re being hurt by something that I had a hand in making. I need to try to make this right, and if I help them, they’re going to figure it out anyway. Din, this… this is what feels right to me. Leave me if you want, take the kid if you think it’s best, but I have a responsibility here. _This_ is how I feed my mythosaur.”

He shuts his eyes, too cowardly to see the Mandalorian’s reaction to his decision (as convinced as he is he’s doing the right thing). But, instead of the sound of the warrior packing his bags, he hears a sigh, feels the weight of the Mandalorian’s hand on his shoulder once more. 

“Ijaat, a di'kut,” he growls. _(“Honorable, but stupid.”)_

Luma sags in relief. He can only give the man a shaky smile in return.

“Fine,” Din mutters, switching back to Basic. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you when this all goes to hell.”

“I consider myself warned,” he promises.

“Cara went off to gather the villagers for the announcement when we came back, so they should all be in the square now. You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Luma says determinedly, pulling himself to his feet with his stick.

He follows the Mandalorian out of the barn and into the early evening air, hoping beyond hope his announcement doesn’t go quite as badly as he suspects it will.


End file.
